A MEMS platform for 2-D fine-positioning and locking of optical ball-lens in silicon photonics packaging

This paper reports a novel silicon platform with integrated MEMS actuators, which is used for fine-positioning and locking of a ball-lens, to address the optical coupling issues in silicon photonics packaging. The fine-positioning and locking function of the ball-lens have been successfully demonstrated by the developed prototype silicon platform. The main adjusting actuator delivered a large force making the suspension arm moved for 50μm in-plane under the driving voltage of 30V. The displacement resolution is less than 0.1μm within working range of 25+/-5μm. Besides, mechanical locking of the suspension arm by micro-lockers has been achieved and the shift between the locked structures is less than 0.1μm after a vibration test at 2 kHz, 10g. Finally, active alignment of a ball lens in a LD/Si-waveguide optical coupling system is experimentally demonstrated by using the prototype silicon platform.