Study of hybrid driven micromirrors for 3-D variable optical attenuator applications.

Aluminium-coated micromirrors driven by electrothermal and electromagnetic actuations have been demonstrated for 3-D variable optical attenuation applications. Three types of attenuation schemes based on electrothermal, electromagnetic and hybrid, i.e. combination of electrothermal and electromagnetic, actuations have been developed. In addition, two different designs have been fabricated and characterized to investigate the effects of the variations made to both the actuators on the optical attenuation performances of the micromirror. Our unique design of using both ET and EM actuators simultaneously to achieve attenuation is the first demonstration of such hybrid driven CMOS compatible MEMS VOA device.