Titanium nitride micro-electromechanical bridge for wavelength-selective switching

This paper reports on the use of titanium nitride (TiN) in a MEMS-based wavelength specific waveguide optical switch. By interfering a conductive MEMS bridge with the evanescent field of a ring resonator add/drop filter, the device can switch between enabling or disabling the ring resonator. Problems with residual stresses in the MEMS bridges, leading to bridge deflection and thereby causing incomplete switching between the states, -,vas addressed by the use of TiN as the MEMS bridge material. TiN has the virtue of being able to almost completely. We demonstrate the ability to virtually eliminate the residual stresses in TiN and thereby improve the bridge profile, promising much improved switching characteristics.