Design, fabrication and characterization of CMOS-compatible optical microswitches

In this paper, CMOS-compatible electrothermally and laterally driven uni-directional and bidirectional microswitches have been designed, fabricated, post-etched and tested. These types of microactuators use the inherent features available in standard CMOS process technology, to realize novel bi-directional microswitches integrated with IC components. A single post-processing etching step is used to release freestanding microswitches by a CMOS-compatible etchant, tetra-methyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH). The input voltages of these microdevices can be less than 5 volts and compatible with CMOS operational voltages. Analytical calculations and FEM analysis have been performed to predict the performance of microswitches as a function of the design parameters.