Electrostatically tunable optomechanical “zipper” cavity laser

Abstract

A tunable nanoscale "zipper" laser cavity, formed from two doubly clamped photonic crystal nanobeams, is demonstrated. Pulsed, room temperature, optically pumped lasing action at = 1.3 m is observed for cavities formed in a thin membrane containing InAsP/GaInAsP quantum-wells. Metal electrodes are deposited on the ends of the nanobeams to allow for microelectromechanical actuation. Electrostatic tuning over a range of ⌬ = 20 nm for an applied voltage amplitude of 9 V and modulation at a frequency as high as m = 6.7 MHz of the laser wavelength is demonstrated.

Anti-stiction coating for mechanically tunable photonic crystal devices

“…Figure 5 (right panel) shows the PL spectrum integrated over 0.5 million modulation cycles at 100 kHz. Here, the set of modes labelled Xas and Y3s can be recognized by comparison with the sum of the spectra ( Finally, we investigated the dynamic modulation of the coated NOEMS when it is operated under a strong AC signal with varying frequency, in order to study the pull-in dynamics in the presence of the coating [7,8,11]. A DC bias 6 V DC u = − together with an AC sinusoidal component of amplitude 1 V AC u = were used to excite the cavity diode.…”

“…This leads to an opposite and reversible energy shift of the super-modes of the system. This concept has been implemented using laterally- [7][8][9] and vertically- [10] coupled PhC nanobeams and parallel two-dimensional PhC membranes [11].…”

Design of narrow band photonic filter with compact MEMS for tunable resonant wavelength ranging 100 nm

“…5 As improvement, there are experimental demonstrations of electrostatically tunable photonic crystal cavities that provide 10 nm and 20 nm tuning range for narrow band resonance. 6,7 In order to have a widely tunable filter with tuning range ∼ 100 nm, some optical designs have been shown, including a distributed Bragg reflector in a liquid crystal waveguide 8 with a large footprint size of 1.5 mm and a birefringent hollow waveguide 9 with a wide signal band. Hence, a small footprint optical filter that is compatible with integrated silicon nano photonics and provides narrow band filtering with a wide tunable range (e.g., up to 100 nm) will be a further advance in this area.…”

Electrostatic tuning of optomechanical cavities to semiconductor quantum dots

“…Recent progress in optomechanical systems suggests exceptional methods of accessing the strongly-coupled exciton-photon regime. In particular, the extremely large optomechanical couplings (g) and optical quality factors (Q) observed in one-dimensional "zipper" [8,9] and two-dimensional slotted [10] photonic crystals, when integrated with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), can provide fast, wide-range, in-situ, continuous wavelength tuning to QD emission lines.A scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrograph of an InP-quantum-well-based tunable zipper cavity is shown in Fig. 1(a).…”

“…These localized resonances are coupled to the inter-beam gap x g through the optomechanical coupling g = dω/dx, where ω is the frequency of the cavity mode and x is the relative displacement of the beams from the original gap x g . Metal electrodes are deposited on the ends of the beams, enabling tuning of x g , and therefore the resonant optical wavelength [9]. As seen in the micro-photoluminescence (PL) spectra in Fig.…”