Mechanical anti-reflection switch (MARS) device for fiber-in-the-loop applications

Author

Walker, J.A. ; Goossen, K.W. ; Arney, S.C.

Author_Institution

Lucent Technol., Bell Lab., Holmdel, NJ, USA

fYear

1996

fDate

5-9 Aug. 1996

Firstpage

59

Lastpage

60

Abstract

The Mechanical Anti-Reflection Switch (MARS) device is an optical modulator based on the principle of a vertically moving antireflection film suspended above a silicon substrate. The authors demonstrate that such a micromechanical modulator has the capability of providing upstream data rates of 3.5 Mbit/sec with low BER in a fiber-to-the-home communications system. Due to several advantageous aspects of the MARS, packaging costs for the device should be quite low, resulting in an extremely inexpensive moderate data rate optical modulator.

Keywords

antireflection coatings; economics; electro-optical modulation; electro-optical switches; micromechanical devices; optical fibre subscriber loops; semiconductor device manufacture; semiconductor device packaging; 3.5 Mbit/s; Si; Si substrate; Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/-Si; fiber-in-the-loop applications; fiber-to-the-home communications system; low BER; mechanical anti-reflection switch; micromechanical modulator; optical modulator; packaging costs; upstream data rates; vertically moving antireflection film; Communication switching; Mars; Micromechanical devices; Optical devices; Optical films; Optical modulation; Optical switches; Semiconductor films; Silicon; Substrates;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Advanced Applications of Lasers in Materials Processing/Broadband Optical Networks/Smart Pixels/Optical MEMs and Their Applications. IEEE/LEOS 1996 Summer Topical Meetings:

Conference_Location

Keystone, CO, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3175-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/LEOSST.1996.540793

Filename

540793