SOI-enabled MEMS processes lead to novel mechanical, optical, and atomic physics devices

Beginning in the mid-1990s, Sandia National Laboratories began its migration to Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) wafers to develop a radiation-hardened semiconductor process for sub-0.5mum geometries. Successfully radiation hardening SOI technologies enabled an in-house processing familiarity that exceeded our expectations by opening opportunities to improve other technologies. Rather than rely on a single SOI technology, we have developed families of SOI processes using SOI wafers specifically tailored for each of a number of diverse applications. From this SOI expertise, we have designed, developed, and fabricated a number of novel devices that exploit a variety of mechanical, electrical, and optical phenomena, including atomic-physics based devices. We present a high-level description of our SOI process technologies using product examples. Of particular note are a novel accelerometer, RF MEMS microresonators and contacting switches, integrated optics (low-loss Si waveguides, the smallest and lowest power micro-ring modulators and thermo-optic phase modulators/switches), and ion traps for quantum computing (along with other atomic physics device examples).