Title :
Thermal noise and radiation pressure in MEMS Fabry-Perot tunable filters and lasers
Author :
Tucker, Rodney S. ; Baney, Douglas M. ; Sorin, Wayne V. ; Flory, Curt A.
Author_Institution :
Agilent Labs., Agilent Technol., Palo Alto, CA, USA
Abstract :
In this paper, we examine thermal noise and radiation-pressure effects in MEMS tunable Fabry-Perot etalons. We show that thermal noise causes a jitter in the center wavelength in very high finesse etalons. In turn, the jitter causes an effective increase in the time-averaged filter bandwidth. Radiation pressure is of little consequence in conventional Fabry-Perot etalons, but it can give rise to nonlinearities and hysteresis in the tuning response of high-finesse MEMS filters. We develop models of noise and optical nonlinearities and compare the models with a series of measurements on commercial tunable high-finesse MEMS Fabry-Perot etalons
Keywords :
Fabry-Perot interferometers; hysteresis; jitter; laser noise; laser tuning; micro-optics; micromechanical devices; nonlinear optics; optical filters; optical noise; optical tuning; radiation pressure; semiconductor device models; semiconductor device noise; semiconductor lasers; thermal noise; MEMS Fabry-Perot tunable filters; MEMS tunable Fabry-Perot etalons; center wavelength; high finesse etalons; high-finesse MEMS filters; hysteresis; jitter; lasers; nonlinearities; optical nonlinearities; radiation pressure; thermal noise; time-averaged filter bandwidth; tunable high-finesse MEMS Fabry-Perot etalons; tuning response; Fabry-Perot; Laser noise; Laser tuning; Micromechanical devices; Optical filters; Optical noise; Optical sensors; Surface emitting lasers; Tunable circuits and devices; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers;
Journal_Title :
Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of
DOI :
10.1109/2944.991403
