Microelectromechanical system based variable optical attenuator by vertically bending waveguides

A variable optical attenuator based on electrostatic bending of a silicon-on-insulator rib waveguide was designed and fabricated. Microelectromechanical system fabrication techniques were used to remove the underlying silica layer in a section of a silicon-on-insulator waveguide, creating a deformable beam structure. The observed dependence of the optical attenuation on applied voltage agreed well with numerical modeling, which indicates that …