General design rules for MEMS tunable optical filters

Summary from only given. Tunable optical filters are important for applications such as DWDM optical networks. Micromechanically actuated filters are desirable because of their wide tuning range, design flexibility and high yield. The device structure consists of epitaxial layers forming a single Fabry-Perot cavity, having two distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) and an air gap in-between. We recently reported >100 nm tuning around 1550 nm using a torsional structure. The purpose of this paper is to determine how scalable the various designs are and to establish the design rules. The design flow chart for a MEMS filter using deflection beams is shown.