A miniature Fabry-Perot interferometer with a corrugated silicon diaphragm support

The techniques of silicon micromachining are used to fabricate a second-generation Fabry-Perot interferometer for use in the near-infrared spectral region. The device consists of two silicon wafers with deposited, highly reflective dielectric mirrors. The wafers are bonded together with a small gap between the mirrors and sawed into individual devices. The wavelength tuning and parallelism control of the mirror elements are achieved electrostatically by varying the voltage between control electrodes. This second-generation device includes a thin, etch-stopped corrugated diaphragm as the suspension element, which allows increased travel in a device occupying only 13% of the previous die area.<
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