8:30am - 9:Wam (Invited)

FA1
Mechanical Anti-Reflection Switch (MARS) Device for Fiber-in-the-Loop Applications
J.A. Walker, K.W. Goossen, and S.C. Amey
Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
101 Craw;ords Comer Rd., Room 4B-511, Holmdel, NJ 07733
600 Mountain Ave., Murray Hill, NJ 07974
Wavelength Division Multiplexed Passive Optical Network Systems (WDM-FONS) are being explored
as a means to cost-effectively implement fiber-to-the-home in order to increase the bandwidth of the
telecommunications network. One type of WDM-PONS being explored utilizes an optical modulator
rather than an active source (laser or LED) at the subscriber node to provide upstream data
transmission [l]. In such a system, the same light which is transmitted downstream from the central
office (CO) to the Optical Network Unit (ONU) at the home, is then overmodulated and looped-
back upstream to the central office. These systems have the cost advani.age of sharing the high-
performance CO components over many users. Since the receivers and imodulators located at the
O W are not shared among users however, the cost of these components becomes an extremely
significant issue. For initial deployment, lower cost, moderate performance ONU components can be
installed with potential upgrades later at any users request. These low cost components must still
provide moderate data rates (>1 MbiVsec.), have wide spectral width in order to allow many
wavelength channels, thermal stability, and good optical contrast (>l o dB). Achieving these
performance levels at low cost is a difficult problem, however the device we are describing here has
signal
Si
I
Figure 1: MARS modulation.
been shownto satisfy these requirements.
The Mechanical Anti-geflection Switch (MLARS) device is an optical
modaator basehon the princrple of a vertically moving anti-
reflection film suspended above a silicon substrate [2]. The
operating principle and device structure are shown in Fig. 1. A hJ4-
thick film of silicon nitride is suspended above a silicon substrate
with a 3hJ 4-thick air gap (1, being the center wavelength of the
desired operating spectrum). In this configuration, the
nitride/air/substrate film structure provides a high reflection (>70%)
condition for the desired wavelength A,. When a voltage is applied
between a gold electrode on top of the nitride and the silicon
substrate, the film is electrostatically attracted toward the substrate,
reducing the air gap thickness. When the air gap becomes 1.42, a low
reflection condition (<1%) is achieved. Contrast ratios of up to 24
dB have been measured on these devices. The operating principles
of the MARS device are discussed more thoroughly in Reference 2,
and the fabrication is discussed in Reference 3.
A typical device geometry is shown in Fig. 2. The MARS consists of
a central date sumended \
above the substrate via support beams, Acomprishg the (
mechanically active area of the device. An optical window
is defined by the absence of electrode material in the
center of the plate area. Modulators with central plates
ranging from 10 pm x 10 pm to 100 pm x 100 pn,
support beams ranging from 4 pm wide to 21 pm wide,
and 5 pm long to 100 pm long have been fabricated and
tested.
Figure 3 shows the optical response of a typical MARS
device to a square wave drive signal. This particular
modulator exhibited rise and fall times of 132 and 125 ns
respectively. As seen in Fig. 3, the response includes
mechanical ringing at a characteristic resonant frequency
of roughly 3.5 MHz. With proper device design, this
ringing can be reduced and modeling predicts that usable
data rates can be achieved at three times the resonant
frequency of a device, or for this particular modulator, Figure 2: ~ o p view of a MARS design.
electrode
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roughly 10.5 Mbit/sec. In practice however, wehave yet to demonstrate system operation at such
high data rates. System experiments have been run to determine bit-error-rates for fully packaged
devices under normal operatin4 conditions. Figure 4 shows the response of such a modulator to a
pseudo random bit stream of 2 5-1 word length at 3.5 Mbit/sec. As shown in Fig. 4, the modulator
can achieve this data rate with error rates of less than 10 with less than 2 dB power penalty from the
system base band. This penalty arises mainly from pattern dependent inter-symbol interference.
The final cost of a packaged MARS modulator will be dominated by the expense incurred in
packaging the device. It is in this area that theMARS modulator has some distinct advantages. Due
to thelarge size of the optical window region ( 20-30 jm), inherent polarization insensitivity, and
uncomplicated fabrication, multi-mode packaging techniques can beexploited to obtain single-mode
fiber devices. Measurements show a wide alignment tolerance exists when coupling to a single mode
optical fiber. This tolerance is large enough to enable passive packaging techniques, thereby
eliminating the expensive active alignment process used for most photonic packages today.
CONCLUSION
We have demonstrated a micromechanical modulator withthe capability of providing upstream data
rates of 3.5 Mbidsec with 10 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.
REFERENCES
[I ] N.J. Frigo, P.P. Iannone, P.D. Magill, T.E. Darcie, M.M. Downs, B.N. Desai, U.Koren, T.L. Koch,
C. Dragone, H.M. Presby, and B.E. Bodeep, A wavelength-division multiplexed passive optical
network with cost-shared components, IEEE Phot. Tech. Lett., vol. 6, pp. 1365-1367, 1994.
[2] KW. Goossen, J.A. Walker, and S.C. Amey, Silicon modulator based on mechanically-active
anti-reflection layer with 1 MbiVsec. capability for fiber-in-the-loop applications, IEEE Phot.
Tech. Lett., vol. 6, pp. 1 1 19-1 121, Sept. 1994.
[3] J.A. Walker, K.W. Goossen, and S.C. Amey, Fabrication of a mechanical anti-reflection switch
for fiber to the home systems, J. Micromech. Syst ., vol. 5, no. 1, March 1996.
I I I I I
1.. ..I .r..l. * I . * I . 8 . . I , * I . . . I . . . . I I . . I l l ... b
I
: I
Freq(2)=308.2diz Kise(l)=132.5 11s Fall(l)=125.0 11s
Figure 3: Typical optical response
to a square wave drive signal. Drive
voltage is roughly 50 V.
\ \
I I
-58 -56 -54 -52
Received Power (dBm)
Figure 4: BER result and eye
pattem for a fully packaged
modulator.
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