AVS 47th International Symposium
    Photonics Tuesday Sessions
       Session PH-TuA

Invited Paper PH-TuA1
From Integrated Optics to MOEMS at LETI , the Key Role of Plasma Processes

Tuesday, October 3, 2000, 2:00 pm, Room 310

Session: Challenges in Photonics Materials and Device Processing
Presenter: J.M. Margail, CEA/LETI, France
Authors: J.M. Margail, CEA/LETI, France
P.B.M. Brunet-Manquat, CEA/LETI, France
C.C. Chabrol, CEA/LETI, France
T.E. Enot, CEA/LETI, France
M.J. Jadot, CEA/LETI, France
P.N. Noel, CEA/LETI, France
G.G. Grand, CEA/LETI, France
E.O. Ollier, CEA/LETI, France
P.M. Mottier, CEA/LETI, France
Correspondent: Click to Email
Integrated Optics on Silicon, so-called IOS, started to be studied in France in 1973. In the early eighties the Laboratoire d'Electronique, de Technologie et d'Instrumentation (LETI), mainly focused in optical sensor development and worked to set up a photonic technology based on plasma processing (deposition and etching) of silicon oxide and nitride. During this period, IOS technology grew in maturity, strongly pushed forward by the increasing demand for optical fiber-based telecommunications. Today, low price optical passive components are targeted using microelectronic based processes and mass production. However one of the key issues for low price devices is the connection to optical fibers (pigtailing). It is estimated that pigtailing represents 80 percent of the component price. To overcome this problem, LETI introduced so called U-grooves formation for passive fiber alignment. This was performed by the application of silicon micro machining, using isotropic plasma etching of silicon. This introduction, during the second part of the eighties of silicon micro machining in the Integrated Optics group at LETI, opened the route to Optical MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems) development. Today the strong demand concerning Optical Telecommunication pushed strongly forward the development of Optical MEMS and particularly optical microswitches devices for "fully optical" information routing. This paper will focus on the use of plasma processes for photonic device processing, it will be presented and illustrated (key issues, performances) by some examples of fabricated photonic devices as WDM Phasar, passive alignment of 1 to 8 dividers,1 to 8 optical microswitches.