Abstract
Optical MEMS devices have included micro-mirrors,1,2 tunable gratings, tunable Fabry-Perot resonators, etc. For example, Silicon Light Machines has commercialized the Grating Light Valve3 as a light modulator. The period of the GLV is controlled digitally by moving the grating beam in the vertical direction. Analog control of the beam height permits modulation of the diffraction efficiency. Senturia and collaborators demonstrated the Polychromator4 which utilizes similar actuation principle. The angular resolution of these systems is limited by the minimum beam width (on the order of 2–3 microns). We here show a tunable grating design which permits analog control over the diffraction angle. This is accomplished by analog actuation, electrostatic or piezoelectric, of the grating beams in the lateral direction. Thus, our device trades deflection range for angular resolution. Applications for high resolution analog tunable gratings include microspectrometers, external cavity tunable lasers, thermal compensators for wavelength multiplexer-demultiplexers, etc.
© 2002 Optical Society of America
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