Micro-opto-electro-mechanical system (MOEMS)

[0002] Optical switches and other optoelectronic devices have advanced rapidly with developments in manufacturing technologies over the years. With the advent of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, such devices could be made smaller, but problems arose when trying to align a light beam emitting from an optical fiber transporting light between a light source and transmission/conversion chips. These conversion chips generally provide the function of optical switching or conversion to/from electrical signals. For single-mode optical fibers, the tolerance of alignment between fibers and the targeted area is usually about 0.1 μm. Multi-mode optical fibers have a slightly wider alignment tolerance, however this is usually still below 5 μm. Such high-precision alignments are currently performed manually and are expensive.

[0003] An additional disadvantage of current Micro Optical Electrical Mechanical Systems (MOEMS) is that in order to tolerate misalignment of optical fibers, the active area of the photodiode is generally enlarged to cover all areas on which light can project. A larger active area yields a larger p-n junction, resulting in a large junction capacitance that can lower the switching speed of the MOEMS system. Manual alignment is generally needed in the aforementioned system to achieve higher conversion efficiency.

[0004] For these reasons, development of a low cost, high-precision alignment mechanism for fiber-chip connections is important to, for example, reduce the cost of hardware of optical fiber communication systems and also reduce the costs of many optical systems that require optical fibers as media for guiding light signals.

[0005] The principles of the present invention provide for a Micro Optical Electro Mechanical System (MOEMS) including a MEMS mirror module for high-precision alignment between optical fibers and MOEMS chips. Instead of aligning chips and optical fibers under a microscope, the present invention uses an easier method: adjusting the path of a light beam emerging from an optical fiber with MEMS mirrors such that the light beam projects on a targeted area. The beam divergence problem introduced when the light waves travel through free space between mirrors can be solved by passing the beam through a curved optical element, such as a spherically curved mirror or a lens in the mirror module, to converge and/or collimate the light. Through experiments, it was found that the efficiency of, for example, a five-mirror module is on the order of approximately 62.4% when the MEMS mirrors are coated with gold, which is high enough for most applications.

[0006] This disclosure includes the attached Figures, which Figures are summarized as follows:

[0007] FIG. 1 shows a schematic cross section of a portion of embodiments of the invention.

[0008] FIG. 2 shows a schematic cross section of a portion of embodiments of the invention with a device positioned atop the substrate.

[0009] FIG. 3 is a schematic elevational view of a portion of embodiments of the invention with additional mirrors and an optical device atop the substrate.

[0010] FIG. 4 is a schematic cross sectional view of the view of FIG. 4.

[0011] FIG. 5 shows a comprehensive schematic elevational view of a preferred implementation of embodiments of the invention including movable and fixed mirrors and an optical device atop the substrate.

[0012] FIG. 6 is a top view of the view of FIG. 5.

[0013] FIG. 7 is a cross sectional side view of the groove shown in FIGS. 5 and 6.

[0014] FIG. 8 is a chart illustrating the relative performances of two different types of mirrors that can be used with the invention.

[0015] MEMS technology provides a solution to the problems described above, particularly to the costly manual alignment of optical fibers. Instead of moving chips and optical fibers under a microscope, a user adjusts the path of the light beam with MEMS mirrors that project the light beam on the prescribed spot. Before describing the subject approach designed to align an optical fiber on a MOEMS chip, an exemplary machine that might include the system will be described.

[0016] As illustrated in the FIGS., and particularly in FIGS. 1 and 2, device 100 includes a substrate 101 in which a groove 110 is formed. An optical fiber 10 lies in the groove 110 with its end facing a reflective inclined end surface 113 of the groove. The inclination angle 115 of the groove end surface 113 is less than 90 degrees relative to an imaginary extension of the bottom surface of the groove 110, as shown, for example, in FIGS. 4 and 7, so that light 11 incident upon the reflective end surface 113 reflects out of the groove 110, as represented by arrow 12. In embodiments, the angle of the end surface is between about 45 and about 65 degrees as measured from the bottom of the groove; an angle of about 54.7 degrees is beneficial in some embodiments. In one exemplary implementation of the device 100, the light can shine upon an optical device. For example, the optical device can be a photodetector, spectrophotometric grid, interferometer, diffraction grating, or another optical or optoelectronic element, such as the flip-chip bonded optical device 13 shown in FIG. 2. To enhance performance of the reflective end surface 113, a coating 114 of a reflection enhancing material, such as gold or silver, can be included.

[0017] As indicated in FIGS. 3 and 4, the integration of optical components into a MOEMS is permitted. For example, an optical device 124, such as a photodiode array, can be placed on the substrate 101 and can receive light 11 from the fiber 10 via mirrors formed on the substrate 101. Also, for example, one mirror 120 can be placed above the reflective end surface 113 of the groove 110 so that it reflects the light toward another mirror 121 that reflects the light onto the optical device 124. The mirrors 120, 121 can be held on the substrate with hinges 123, 124, and are preferably formed from polysilicon, single crystal silicon, or another suitable material. When desired, the mirrors 120, 121 can be coated in similar fashion to the end surface 113 to enhance their reflectivity. Thus, the mirrors 120, 121 and the reflective end surface 113 form a light path between the end of the optical fiber 10 and the optical device 124, and can send light from one to the other, vice versa, or both. As seen particularly in FIG. 4, the first mirror 120 is positioned to reflect the light parallel to the surface of the substrate 101.

[0018] FIG. 5 illustrates one specific implementation of a MOEMS. In this example, an anisotropic wet etch, in which potassium hydroxide (KOH) or the like is used to etch or erode the substrate surface with techniques known in the art, defines a V- or trapezoidal-shaped trench or groove 110, 110′ into the substrate 101. Fibers requiring, for example, a 200 μm-deep groove have been used, but it should be readily apparent to those skilled in the art that the size of the trench 110 will vary widely depending upon the particular dimensions of the fibers used and the particular desired module characteristics. The trench 110 is oriented so that the surface 113 at the end of the trench 110 can be used to reflect the light 11 upward to a mirror 131 similar to that shown in FIG. 3. Preferably, as with the mirrors of FIG. 3, the mirror 131 is formed from polysilicon or single-crystal silicon (SCS). The diameter of many single-mode optical fibers is approximately 100-125 μm and can fit well into a 200 μm-deep groove with misalignment in the x and y directions of less than 1.0 μm, as shown in FIG. 1. The etched surfaces are smooth enough to function as efficient optical mirrors as demonstrated in literatures. As mentioned above, the surface can be coated with gold or aluminum to increase the reflectivity of the mirror. As shown in FIG. 3, when a mirror 120 is added on top of the trench 110 and is oriented at about 35.3° relative to the chip surface in various embodiments, the light reflected from the mirror will be substantially parallel to the chip surface. With the addition of another MEMS mirror 121, or of another optical device, such as a grating plate, the light from an optical fiber can be guided to project on an on-chip optical device 122, such as a photodiode array as shown in FIG. 3 for spectroscopy application.

[0019] When an optical fiber 10 is put into this V-shaped groove or trench 110, misalignments in the x direction, the y direction, or both, can occur, as shown in FIG. 1. Any misalignment in the z-direction can change the coupling efficiency from the fiber 10 to the chip 101 but not the projection position on the targeted optical device 122. As shown in FIG. 3, taking the MEMS spectrophotometer as an example, any misalignment in the x-detraction can be resolved by extending the width of the active region of photo diodes in the optical device 122. For example, when the optical fiber 10 is misaligned 10 μm in the x-direction, the reflected light will be shifted 10 μm laterally on the grating plate. However, because of the extended width of each photodiode pixel, the light dissolved from the grating plate 121 will still fall on the active region of photo-diodes. When the fiber 10 is misaligned in the y-direction (perpendicular to the wafer surface), the light output will shift along the photodiode array. For example, when the original design the spectral components should fall on photo diodes number 101 to 612 in the array, because of misalignment the optical signals may be shifted to falling on photo diodes 218 to 729. In this case, the output signals from the photo diode array have to be calibrated to compensate the offset. Applying a reference light source to identify its projection address on the photo diode array can achieve this. This is usually a one-time calibration and can be performed after the fiber is assembled on the chip.

[0020] With the addition of comb drive actuators 139, 140 and additional mirrors 132, 133, the misalignment in x and y direction can be corrected by applying an electrical signal on the actuators 139, 140 to adjust the position of the MEMS mirrors 131, 133, as shown in FIG. 5. FIG. 5 shows a 5-mirror module for fiber-chip connection. The optical fiber 10 is fitted into a trapezoidal/triangular groove 110 etched into the silicon substrate 101. The depth and width of this trapezoidal groove 110 is designed to accommodate an optical fiber 10 such that the light 11 can be guided to hit on the surface 113 at the end of the trapezoidal groove 110, and be reflected upward along a path as designed. The surface 113 can be coated with gold or another suitable material 114 to increase its reflectivity. As the etch of this trapezoidal groove 110 can be accurately controlled to within ±1 μm, the misalignment on positioning optical fibers 10 into the trapezoidal groove 110 can be minimized, and this small deviation can be fixed by adjusting the position of the guiding mirrors. After the optical fiber 10 is put on its final position in the trapezoidal groove 110, it can be glued on in this position. This does not require a high-precision alignment because the relative position between the fiber and the chip is largely controlled by the photolithography step and the wet etch used to define the trapezoidal groove 110.

[0021] After being reflected by the reflecting end surface 113 in the trapezoidal groove 110, the light 11 is guided to hit a movable mirror 131, as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6. This mirror 131 sits on an movable platform 136, as shown in FIG. 7, and its position can be adjusted by applying an voltage on the electrostatic comb drive 139 which is attached to the platform 136. With the adjustment of position of the first mirror 121, the height (perpendicular to the wafer surface) of the outgoing light beam can be controlled. This latitude of control is converted into the adjustment of x-position of the light beam after it reaches the final mirror 134, which is shown as being fixed in this exemplary implementation. The light signals are next guided to impinge on a fixed mirror 132, then a second movable mirror 133. The movement of the second movable mirror 133 provides the latitude of controlling the y-position of its final falling spot on the optical device 135, such as a photo-diode/laser diode, as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6.

[0022] Another factor is the divergence of the light beam after it leaves a fiber. The increase in the beam size as a function of the free space propagation distance can be calculated according to the Gaussian beam theory. The light beam with a wavelength λ, after it propagates in free space for a distance z away from the origin, where the light beam has the smallest radius r₀, has a beam radius: $r\left(z\right)={r_0\left[1+{\left(\frac{z\lambda }{r_0^2\pi }\right)}^2\right]}^{\frac{1}{2}}$

[0023] The length of free space light path in this system is preferably in the range of from about 600 μm to about 800 μm and will introduce a beam divergence problem.

[0024] To compensate for beam divergence associated with the long light path introduced by this 5-mirror system, the first movable mirror 131 can, for example, be made spherically curved to converge the light beam.

[0025] One concern about such a 5-mirror light guiding system is the efficiency of the light signal after multiple reflection. The efficiency of this light guiding system is

[0026] E=R₁·R₂·R₃·R₄·R₅

[0027] where R₁, R₂, R₃, R₄, R₅are the reflectivities of MEMS mirrors (includes the silicon surface mirror in the groove), respectively. Now when the mirror used is single-crystal silicon surface, the reflectivity is shown in FIG. 8. The wavelength of the light source used in this measurement was 1.55 μm. Without gold coating, the reflectivity ranges from 32% to 37%, depending on the incident angles of light. In this case, the efficiency of this 5-mirror system is

[0028] E=0.33·0.36·0.37·0.37·0.37=0.0056≈0.5%

[0029] The reflectivity of the MEMS mirror increases to about 91% when the mirrors are coated with gold, and the overall system efficiency is

[0030] H=0.91·0.91·0.91·0.91·0.91=0.624≈62.4%

[0031] This efficiency value is adequate for most applications.

[0032] It is known in the art that a polysilicon mirror after chemical mechanical polish (CMP) has a reflectivity similar to that of a SCS mirror. As a result, a polysilicon mirror module would provide an overall reflectivity close to that of SCS mirrors. After the mirrors are moved to their final positions, the platform supporting these mirrors will be glued to these positions and the voltages on the comb drives will be turned off.

[0033] The preceding description of the invention is exemplary in nature as it pertains to particular embodiments disclosed and no limitation as to the scope of the claims is intended by the particular choices of embodiments disclosed.

[0034] Other modifications of the present invention may occur to those skilled in the art subsequent to a review of the present application, and these modifications, including equivalents thereof, are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.