Extremely Wide Tuning Range of Mechanical Oscillation of a Silicon Waveguide Driven by Optical Gradient Force

Abstract

MEMS oscillators are well-suited for filter and timing applications owing to high resonator quality factors. Active compensation of frequency variation in conventional commercial MEMS oscillators is limited by their tuning range, which is typically <1,000ppm. This paper demonstrates an extremely wide tuning range for oscillations of a silicon clamped-clamped beam via the optical spring effect. Frequency tuning from 3.1MHz to 19.4MHz is achieved by varying the intra-cavity power, corresponding to an optical-tuning coefficient of 1312.5ppm/µW. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest reported tuning range in literature for MEMS oscillators.