A porous silicon thermally tunable optical filter

Porous silicon (PSi) is a promising material for the creation of optical components for chip-to-chip interconnects because of its unique optical properties, flexible fabrication methods and integration with conventional CMOS material sets. In this paper, we present a novel active optical filter made of PSi to select desired optical wavelengths. The tunable membrane type optical filter is based on a Fabry-Perot interferometer employing two Bragg reflectors separated by an adjustable air gap, which can be thermally controlled. The Bragg reflectors contain alternating layers of high and low porosities. These layers were created by electrochemical etching of p+ type silicon wafers by varying the applied current during etching process. Micro bimorph actuators are designed to control the movement of the top DBR mirror, which changes the cavity thickness. By varying the applied current, the proposed filter can tune the transmitted wavelength of the optical signal. Various geometrical shapes and sizes ranging from 100 mu m to 1mm of the active filtering region have been realized for specific applications. The MOEMS technology-based device fabrication is fully compatible with the existing IC mass fabrication processes, and can be integrated with a variety of active and passive optical components to realize inter-chip or intra-chip communication at the system level at a relatively low cost.