Thermally driven optical fibre switch for micromachinery and its making method

Abstract

A thermally driven micromechanical switch for blocking or switching optical fibre signals in optical network is disclosed. 4 optical fibres perpendicular to each other are fixed on silicon board with a central pit for arranging a reflector in it. The said reflector with 45 deg of included angle relative to said optical fibres is fixed to one end of a cantilever whose another end is fixed to said silicon board. Its preparingp rocess includes corroding deep slots on the back of silicon board, corroding the silicon film at the position of cantilever, growing insulating film and metal film for making heating resistor, etching resistor bars, photoetching cantilever with reflector and optical fibre slots pattern, and corroding on front surface to form optical fibre slots, cantilever and microreflector.

Description

1. Technical field: [0001] The invention is a device for blocking and converting optical fiber signals in a digital optical fiber communication network, in particular a heat-driven micromechanical switch device and its manufacturing method. 2. Background technology: [0002] Realizing the Broadband Integrated Digital Communication Network (B-ISDN) which is the core of the next-generation communication network is one of the concerns of people, and expects to usher in the era of Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH). The optical switch device is a key component to realize arbitrary cross-connection of optical fibers between users and switches, and is also one of the key devices to realize FTTH. The traditional mechanical optical switch is bulky, expensive and has poor reliability, which is difficult to meet the requirements of FTTH. Recently proposed electro-optic and waveguide switches improve some of these disadvantages, but their insertion loss and crosstalk are still large compared to...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Because the former does not need to move the optical fiber, it can realize N×M (N, M≥2) optical switch array, and the micromirror drive can be realized in various ways (for example: hinge type, sliding type, electrostatic drive type, electromagnetic drive type etc.), the disadvantage is that the complexity of the process is closely related to the driving method of the micromirror. The latter process is relatively simple, but the switching performance is related to the alignment accuracy of the optical fiber

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