A Photonic Crystal Waveguide Switch with a Movable Bridge Slab

A photonic crystal waveguide switch with a movable slab was fabricated by silicon micromachining. The switch structure consisted of an input, an output photonic crystal waveguide slabs, and a switching slab to bridge the waveguides. Driving the switching slab with a electrostatic micro-electro-mechanical actuator, the transmission between the waveguides was modulated. The switching characteristics were explained by the calculation results using the finite-difference time-domain method