Silicon micromirrors with three-dimensional curvature enabling lensless efficient coupling of free-space light

Yasser M Sabry; Bassam Saadany; Diaa Khalil; Tarik Bourouina

doi:10.1038/lsa.2013.50

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Silicon micromirrors with three-dimensional curvature enabling lensless efficient coupling of free-space light

Original Articles

- Silicon micromirrors with three-dimensional curvature enabling lensless efficient coupling of free-space light
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 2, Issue 3-4, (2013)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Université Paris-Est, ESYCOM (EA 2552), ESIEE Paris, F-93162 Noisy-le-Grand, France
  2.Si-Ware Systems, 3 Khaled Ibn El-Waleed Street, Heliopolis, Cairo 11361, Egypt
  3.Electron. and Comm. Eng. Dept., Faculty of Eng., Ain-Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
- Author bio：
  
  Dr T Bourouina, Université Paris-Est, ESYCOM (EA 2552), ESIEE Paris, F-93162 Noisy-le-Grand, France E-mail: t.bourouina@esiee.fr
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/lsa.2013.50
  CLC：
- Published：2013-12，
  
  Published Online：16 August 2013，
  
  Received：14 October 2012，
  
  Revised：17 January 2013，
  
  Accepted：18 March 2013
- Accepted：
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Sabry, Y. M. et al. Silicon micromirrors with three-dimensional curvature enabling lensless efficient coupling of free-space light. Light: Science & Applications, 2, e94 (2013).
DOI：

Sabry, Y. M. et al. Silicon micromirrors with three-dimensional curvature enabling lensless efficient coupling of free-space light. Light: Science & Applications, 2, e94 (2013). DOI： 10.1038/lsa.2013.50.

摘要

Abstract

Miniaturized optical benches process free-space light propagating in-plane with respect to the substrate and have a large variety of applications

including the coupling of light through an optical fiber. High coupling efficiency is usually obtained using assembled micro-optical parts

which considerably increase the system cost and integration effort. In this work

we report a high coupling efficiency

monolithically integrated silicon micromirror with controlled three-dimensional (3D) curvature that is capable of manipulating optical beams propagating in the plane of the silicon substrate. Based on our theoretical modeling

a spherical micromirror with a microscale radius of curvature as small as twice the Gaussian beam Rayleigh range provides a 100% coupling efficiency over a relatively long optical path range. Introducing dimensionless parameters facilitates the elucidation of the role of key design parameters

including the mirror's radii of curvature

independent of the wavelength. A micromachining method is presented for fabricating the 3D micromirror using fluorinated gas plasmas. The measured coupling efficiency was greater than 50% over a 200-μm optical path

compared to less than 10% afforded by a conventional flat micromirror

which was in good agreement with the model. Using the 3D micromirror

an optical cavity was formed with a round-trip diffraction loss of less than 0.4%

resulting in one order of magnitude enhancement in the measured quality factor. A nearly 100% coupling was also estimated when matching the sagittal and tangential radii of curvature of the presented micromirror's surface. The reported class of 3D micromirrors may be an advantageous replacement for the optical lenses usually assembled in silicon photonics and optical benches by transforming them into real 3D monolithic systems while achieving wideband high coupling efficiency over submillimeter distances.

关键词

Keywords

coupling efficiencyGaussian beam couplingmicro-opticsmonolithic chipoptical cavityoptical fabricationoptical benchessilicon photonics

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