Piezo-optomechanical cantilever modulators for VLSI visible photonics

<jats:p> Visible-wavelength very large-scale integration photonic circuits have a potential to play important roles in quantum information and sensing technologies. The realization of scalable, high-speed, and low-loss photonic mesh circuits depends on reliable and well-engineered visible phot...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dong, Mark, Heim, David, Witte, Alex, Clark, Genevieve, Leenheer, Andrew J, Dominguez, Daniel, Zimmermann, Matthew, Wen, Y Henry, Gilbert, Gerald, Englund, Dirk, Eichenfield, Matt
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: AIP Publishing 2022
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144032
Description
Summary:<jats:p> Visible-wavelength very large-scale integration photonic circuits have a potential to play important roles in quantum information and sensing technologies. The realization of scalable, high-speed, and low-loss photonic mesh circuits depends on reliable and well-engineered visible photonic components. Here, we report a low-voltage optical phase shifter based on piezo-actuated mechanical cantilevers, fabricated on a CMOS compatible, 200 mm wafer-based visible photonics platform. We show linear phase and amplitude modulation with 6 V<jats:sub>π</jats:sub> cm in differential operation, −1.5 to −2 dB insertion loss, and up to 40 dB contrast in the 700–780 nm range. By adjusting selected cantilever parameters, we demonstrate a low-displacement and a high-displacement device, both exhibiting a nearly flat frequency response from DC to a peak mechanical resonance at 23 and 6.8 MHz respectively, which, through resonant enhancement of Q ∼ 40, further decreases the operating voltage down to 0.15 V<jats:sub>π</jats:sub> cm. </jats:p>