Loading patent…
AssigneeJapan Science and Technology Corporation
InventorsPhilippe Helin, Makoto Mita, Hiroyuki Fujita
Estimating the term…
A mechanical optic switch is disclosed that is of high miller quality, high in the accuracy of opto-axial alignment between a miller and a fiber aligning structure and yet of low insertion loss, permitting fiber optic switching by an electromagnetic force. It is made by a crystallographically oriented face dependent etching process, which simultaneously forms in a Si (100) crystallographically faced single crystal substrate (1), V-grooves (3) for fixing optical fibers (2, 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d) with the V-groove's longitudinal axes oriented in the <110> crystallographic direction or in a direction equivalent thereto; and a resilient support beam (5) and a miller (4, 6) with the longitudinal axis of the resilient support beam and the miller surface of the miller oriented in the <100> direction or in a direction equivalent thereto. Slitting into the substrate from a rear surface thereof by etching renders the support beam resilient and flexible. The resilient support beam is provided with a permanent magnet, and a magnetic field created by a coil disposed beneath the resilient support beam is used to move the miller. This makes it possible for the optical axes of the optical fiber fixing grooves and the movable miller to be established independently of the accuracy of etching masks and the time period of etching but at an accuracy as determined by the accuracy of crystallographic faces' orientations, thus permitting the optical fibers and the miller to be aligned opto-axially at high accuracy while reducing the loss of light to an large extent. Further, the ability for the resilient support beam to be deflected by an external force applied thereto enables the miller surface selectively to come out of the optical axis of an optical fiber, which in turn enables the optical path to be altered one to another among a plurality of optical fibers and also to be restored by removing the external force; hence optical switching operations made possible.
A mechanical optic switch, characterized in that it comprises a groove for fixing an optical fiber, and a movable miller, wherein said groove and said miller are those formed simultaneously in a single crystal substrate in accordance with a crystallographically oriented face dependent etching process.
A mechanical optic switch as set forth in claim 5, characterized in that adding the permanent magnet to said yoke including drive coil establishes a pair of stable positions for said resilient support beam having the permanent magnet disposed on the rear surface thereof, and that directionally reversing the electric current passed through said coil selectively establishes one of said two stable positions.
A method of manufacturing a mechanical optic switch, characterized in that it comprises applying a crystallographically oriented face dependent etching process to simultaneously form in a Si (100) crystallographically faced single crystal substrate, a V-groove for fixing an optical fiber and a movable miller made of an resilient support beam and a miller.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.