Skip to content
6CCVD Research

Engineering Nano-Opto-Electromechanical Systems

At a Glance

Section titled “At a Glance”
MetadataDetails
Publication Date2015-01-01
JournalInfoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)
AuthorsNiels Quack, Ming C. Wu

Abstract

Section titled “Abstract”

Access to nanometric feature sizes with standard lithography and manufacturing processes in commercial foundries has recently spurred interest in design of advanced nanophotonic circuits. The scalability of such systems and the prospect of tight integration with electronics provide a path for miniaturization and addressing new functionalities. Research at the recently established EPFL Q-LAB focusses on engineering challenges in Nano-Opto- Electromechanical systems. In this contribution, we summarize recent advances in nano-opto- electromechanical systems in three examples: (I) MEMS movable nano-optical waveguides on an integrated silicon photonics platform allow efficient optical switching on chipscale [1]. Dense integration of MEMS silicon photonic switches has been demonstrated with a an array of 50x50 individually addressable switches on a single chip of response time and low switching excess loss (1.5dB). Challenges presented by large-scale integration on chip-level can be met by including efficient addressing schemes [2]. (II) Tight integration of silicon photonic circuits with CMOS electronics allows single-chip integration of an opto-electronic feedback loop for LIDAR ranging with sub-mm range resolution [3]. (III) Exploiting radiation pressure based optomechanical interaction in nano-opto- electromechanical resonators, oscillators for frequency reference applications can be batch- fabricated on wafer-level. With precise control of the fabrication processes, with optical and mechanical design, and exploiting singleand multi-material systems such as silica, silicon and/or diamond, low-phase noise optomechanical oscillators can be designed: Engineering the optical Q-factor allows optomechanical excitation of parametric oscillation, and increasing mechanical Q-factors is hereby essential to reduce the phase noise in optomechanical oscillators for potential practical applications [4]. References [1] S. Han, T. J. Seok, N. Quack, B.-W. Yoo and M. C. Wu, Optica, 2, 4, 370. [2] N. Quack, T. J. Seok, S. Han, W. Zhang, R. S. Muller and M. C. Wu, IEEE OMN 2015. [3] P. Sandborn, N. Quack, N. Hoghooghi, J. B. Chou, J. Ferrara, S. Gambini, B. Behroozpour, L. Zhu, B. Boser, C. Chang-Hasnain and M. C. Wu, CLEO 2013, CTu2G.5. [4] T. O. Rocheleau, A. J. Grine, K. E. Grutter, R. A. Schneider, N. Quack, M. C. Wu and C. T.-C. Nguyen, IEEE MEMS 2013, 118-121. Short Biography Niels Quack received his MSc from EPF Lausanne, and his PhD from ETH Zurich, in 2005 and 2009, respectively. From 2011 to 2015 he was postdoctoral researcher and visiting scholar at University of California, Berkeley, within the Integrated Photonics Laboratory at the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center. From 2014 to 2015 he was Senior MEMS Engineer at sercalo Microtechnology. Research interests include MEMS, Optical MEMS, Tunable Optical Microsystems, Optomechanical Oscillators, Silicon Photonics, Heterogeneous Integration, LIDAR, Diamond Photonics. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and Swiss National Science Foundation Funded Professor at EPFL since June 2015.

Tech Support

Section titled “Tech Support”

Original Source

Section titled “Original Source”

Reads Similar to This

Quadrupolar Resonance Spectroscopy of Individual Nuclei Using a Room-Temperature Quantum Sensor Focus on lasers, imaging, and microscopy Mathematical modeling of thermal loads of x-ray adaptive optics materials