Abstract
An optical phase shifter for integrated optics is proposed and demonstrated in a single SOI chip. By monolithic integration of deformable silicon wire waveguides and micro-electro-mechanical- system (MEMS) actuators, the optical phase shifter for a guided wave can be realized by mechanically stretching the waveguide length using the electrostatic force. Besides, in order to realize highly compact photonic integrated circuits based on silicon photonic wires, multimode interference (MMI) couplers were introduced for performing light splitting and combing due to the advantages of wide optical bandwidth(about 20nm), polarization independence and large fabrication tolerance. In experimental measurement, the maximum phase shift of 0.35□ is attained at 200V around the wavelength 1550nm for the TM-polarized light. The dynamic actuation speed is also verified to be near 103□s for the proposed device.