1. MEMS and PLC ee290f J Provine 2.19.2004

2. Overview Introduction & Motivation PLC components (AWG) MEMS components Desired System Integration technique Additional applications

3. Introduction Transmission capacity far exceeds switching capacity 40 Gbps fiber deployed late 2002/2003 All-optical switching will emerge with improved transmission technology Advancing optics: Fiber-based Fiber-based Passive devices Passive devices Active devices Active devices

4. Introduction Bottom line: most of current devices serve on the transmission-link level. Few products bring new functions to the network level. Or take advantage of network properties. 1 2 n VOA DGEF DC OXC Rx

5. Motivation Wavelength OXC is available and deployed. Deployment of waveband OXC is only limited by transmission technology (no regeneration). However, when we interconnect WB OXC with OXC, we are restricted by the flexibility of MUX/DEMUX! Problem: MUX/DEMUX has fixed input/output wavelengths. WB Waveband OXC Wavelength OXC

6. Motivation Reconfigurable Mux/Demux is a desired optical system. Existing technologies (TFF, AWG, bulk gratings, etc.) do not allow this. But “perhaps” linking the optical device with MEMS will allow desired functionality.

7. Planar Lightwve Circuits Silica/Silicon based waveguide elements Arrayed Waveguide Gratings Waveguide Bragg Gratings Optical Fibers

8. Cyclic AWG Finally, the cyclic nature from changing input waveguides provide the desired action. Just need a good method for changing the input waveguide. Input 1 1 2 3 n Black Box 2 3 4 1 Input 2 Input 1 Input 2

9. MEMS Components Pop-up Mirror. Out of plane. Good size and smoothness. Bad fill factor and assembly. Scanning Mirror. In plane. Limited scanning angle. Stress concerns. Excellent fill factor. Size related to Resonant frequency. Digital sidewall mirror. Utilizes DRIE. Decent roughness. Easy fabrication. Light parallel to plane. Small mirror size. Integration enabled.

10. Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer Input fiber Tuning movement Output from tuning position 1 Output from tuning position 2

11. Results

12. Current Work Use a scanning mirror at input. Lower Cladding Upper Cladding Core Lower Cladding Core Upper Cladding AWG Substrate MEMS Substrate Anchored MEMS Released MEMS ~35  m Flip Chip integration.

13. Current Work PLC MEMS

14. Other Devices & Applications Optical Delay LinesOther switch configurations