Design, fabrication and characterization of a suspended plate mechano-optical modulator

A mechano-optical modulator is presented based on the Integrated Optical Nano-Mechanical (IONM) effect [1]. It consists of a light-weight, rigid silicon-nitride suspended plate structure with strengthening ridges and bi-directional electrostatic actuation to maximize switching speed. The mechanical structure and optical waveguide are realized on separate chips and then assembled together resulting in hybrid integration. The latter is made possible by using a self-alignment technique which results in a misalignment error of at most 2 μm.