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Aluminum Nitride Out-of-Plane Piezoelectric MEMS Actuators

Integrating microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuators with low-loss suspended silicon nitride waveguides enables the precise alignment of these waveguides to other photonic integrated circuits (PICs). This requires both in-plane and out-of-plane actuators to ensure high-precision optical align...

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Autores principales: Rabih, Almur A. S., Kazemi, Mohammad, Ménard, Michaël, Nabki, Frederic
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10059770/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36985106
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi14030700
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author Rabih, Almur A. S.
Kazemi, Mohammad
Ménard, Michaël
Nabki, Frederic
author_facet Rabih, Almur A. S.
Kazemi, Mohammad
Ménard, Michaël
Nabki, Frederic
author_sort Rabih, Almur A. S.
collection PubMed
description Integrating microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuators with low-loss suspended silicon nitride waveguides enables the precise alignment of these waveguides to other photonic integrated circuits (PICs). This requires both in-plane and out-of-plane actuators to ensure high-precision optical alignment. However, most current out-of-plane electrostatic actuators are bulky, while electrothermal actuators consume high power. Thus, piezoelectric actuators, thanks to their moderate actuation voltages and low power consumption, could be used as alternatives. Furthermore, piezoelectric actuators can provide displacements in two opposite directions. This study presents a novel aluminum nitride-based out-of-plane piezoelectric MEMS actuator equipped with a capacitive sensing mechanism to track its displacement. This actuator could be integrated within PICs to align different chips. Prototypes of the device were tested over the range of ±60 V, where they provided upward and downward displacements, and achieved a total average out-of-plane displacement of 1.30 ± 0.04 μm. Capacitance measurement showed a linear relation with the displacement, where at −60 V, the average change in capacitance was found to be −13.10 ± 0.89 fF, whereas at 60 V the change was 11.09 ± 0.73 fF. This study also investigates the effect of the residual stress caused by the top metal electrode, on the linearity of the displacement–voltage relation. The simulation predicts that the prototype could be modified to accommodate waveguide routing above it without affecting its performance, and it could also incorporate in-plane lateral actuators.
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spelling pubmed-100597702023-03-30 Aluminum Nitride Out-of-Plane Piezoelectric MEMS Actuators Rabih, Almur A. S. Kazemi, Mohammad Ménard, Michaël Nabki, Frederic Micromachines (Basel) Article Integrating microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuators with low-loss suspended silicon nitride waveguides enables the precise alignment of these waveguides to other photonic integrated circuits (PICs). This requires both in-plane and out-of-plane actuators to ensure high-precision optical alignment. However, most current out-of-plane electrostatic actuators are bulky, while electrothermal actuators consume high power. Thus, piezoelectric actuators, thanks to their moderate actuation voltages and low power consumption, could be used as alternatives. Furthermore, piezoelectric actuators can provide displacements in two opposite directions. This study presents a novel aluminum nitride-based out-of-plane piezoelectric MEMS actuator equipped with a capacitive sensing mechanism to track its displacement. This actuator could be integrated within PICs to align different chips. Prototypes of the device were tested over the range of ±60 V, where they provided upward and downward displacements, and achieved a total average out-of-plane displacement of 1.30 ± 0.04 μm. Capacitance measurement showed a linear relation with the displacement, where at −60 V, the average change in capacitance was found to be −13.10 ± 0.89 fF, whereas at 60 V the change was 11.09 ± 0.73 fF. This study also investigates the effect of the residual stress caused by the top metal electrode, on the linearity of the displacement–voltage relation. The simulation predicts that the prototype could be modified to accommodate waveguide routing above it without affecting its performance, and it could also incorporate in-plane lateral actuators. MDPI 2023-03-22 /pmc/articles/PMC10059770/ /pubmed/36985106 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi14030700 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Rabih, Almur A. S.
Kazemi, Mohammad
Ménard, Michaël
Nabki, Frederic
Aluminum Nitride Out-of-Plane Piezoelectric MEMS Actuators
title Aluminum Nitride Out-of-Plane Piezoelectric MEMS Actuators
title_full Aluminum Nitride Out-of-Plane Piezoelectric MEMS Actuators
title_fullStr Aluminum Nitride Out-of-Plane Piezoelectric MEMS Actuators
title_full_unstemmed Aluminum Nitride Out-of-Plane Piezoelectric MEMS Actuators
title_short Aluminum Nitride Out-of-Plane Piezoelectric MEMS Actuators
title_sort aluminum nitride out-of-plane piezoelectric mems actuators
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10059770/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36985106
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi14030700
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