Phys.org February 5, 2024
Researchers in South Korea demonstrated the array-level tunable couplers and phase shifters with capacitive electrostatic microelectromechanical actuators in a recirculating mesh network. The overall fabrication process was compatible with the conventional wafer-level passive silicon photonics platform. Extremely low unit-level standby power consumption of and reconfiguration energy with <11 V programming voltages offered well-balanced, scalable routes for efficient phase and amplitude modulation of the guided lightwaves with sub-decibel optical losses. The extinction ratios of the continuously tunable directional coupler exceed 30 dB. Full 2Ï€-phase shifting could be achieved with a modulation efficiency of less than 0.075 V cm and a phase-dependent insertion-loss variation of 0.01 dB… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Scalable, low-loss and <10-fW-static-power PPIC. Credit: Nature Photonics volume 17, pages1089–1096 (2023)