A guided-wave optical switch controlled by a micro-electro-mechanical cantilever

Micro-electro-mechanical (MEM) systems hold great promise for replacing movable mirror optical switch in telecommunications applications primarily owing to their greatly reduced weight and the ease for mass production. Here we report a MEM actuated integrated optic switch that is fabricated on a silicon substrate and is capable of moderate scale integration. The switching action is based on electro-static bending of a cantilever arm containing two vertically aligned waveguides. The device is implemented by making use of planar waveguide silicon nitride and silicon oxy-nitride technology