MEMS tunable silicon fabry-perot cavity and applications thereof

摘要

A method for fabricating a tunable Fabry-Perot cavity comprises etching a substrate to form two reflectors separated by an air gap and an electrostatic mechanism. One of the two reflectors is mobile and connected to the electrostatic mechanism. Therefore, operation of the electrostatic mechanism moves the mobile reflector to change the thickness of the air gap and thereby tune the Fabry-Perot cavity. A tunable Fabry-Perot cavity fabricated with the above method comprises: a substrate; two reflectors formed in the substrate and separated by an air gap having a thickness, wherein one of the two reflectors is mobile; and an electrostatic mechanism formed in the substrate and connected to the mobile reflector. The mobile reflector connected to the electrostatic mechanism is moved upon operation of the electrostatic mechanism to change the thickness of the air gap and thereby tune the Fabry-Perot cavity. Applications of the Fabry-Perot cavity may comprise a tunable doped fiber laser, a tunable dispersion compensator and an integrated microfluidic refractometer.