US 2003/0169786 A1Published application

Micro-electromechanically tunable vertical cavity photonic device and a method of fabrication thereof

AssigneeEcole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

InventorsElyahou Kapon, Vladimir Iakovlev, Alexei Sirbu, Alok Rudra, Grigore Suruceanu

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Abstract

A tunable Fabry-Perot vertical cavity photonic device and a method of its fabrication are presented. The device comprises top and bottom semiconductor DBR stacks anid a tunable air-gap cavity therebetween. The air-gap cavity is formed within a recess in a spacer above the bottom DBR stack. The top DBR stack is carried by a supporting structure in a region thereof located above a central region of the recess, while a region of the supporting structure above the recess and outside the DBR stack presents a membrane deflectable by the application of a tuning voltage to the device contacts.

Claims46

Dependent claims

A method of fabrication of a Fabry-Perot tunable vertical cavity device comprising first and second distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) stacks with a tunable air-gap cavity therebetween, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) forming a spacer above the first DBR stack, wherein said spacer has a structured surface formed by a recess presenting a location for the tunable air-gap cavity;
(b) providing a second DBR structure and coupling it to the structured surface of the spacer so as to completely cover said recess by said second DBR structure, thus forming the air-gap cavity between the first DBR stack and the second DBR structure, and;
(c) selectively applying material removal to the second DBR structure to form a mesa, presenting the second DBR stack, above a region of said recess, and to form a membrane above said recess outside said second DBR stack.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 10/382,374Filed 6 Mar 2003
Priority: 15 Mar 2001
Published: 11 Sep 2003
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification8 codes

H01S 5/18341
Having only vertical cavities, e.g. vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers [VCSEL]: intra-cavity contacts
B82Y 20/00
Nanooptics
H01S 5/041
Processes or apparatus for excitation, e.g. pumping, e.g. by electron beams: optical pumping
H01S 5/18366
Comprising air layers: membrane DBR, i.e. a movable DBR on top of the VCSEL

Family

Application09/809,236Division · filed 15 Mar 2001
Application10/382,374Division · filed 6 Mar 2003
US 2002/0131458 A1Published application
US 6,546,029 B2Related patent
US 6,828,168 B2Related patent
US 2003/0169786 A1This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.