Nanobenders as efficient piezoelectric actuators for widely tunable nanophotonics at CMOS-level voltages
Abstract
Tuning and reconfiguring of nanophotonic components are needed to realize systems incorporating many components. The electrostatic force can deform a structure and tune its optical response. Despite the success of electrostatic actuators, they suffer from trade-offs between tuning voltage, tuning range, and on-chip area. Piezoelectric actuation could resolve these challenges, but only pm-per-volt scale wavelength tunability has been achieved. Here we propose and demonstrate compact piezoelectric actuators, called nanobenders, that transduce tens of nanometers per volt. By leveraging the non-uniform electric field from submicron electrodes, we generate bending of a piezoelectric nanobeam. Combined with a sliced photonic crystal cavity to sense displacement, we show tuning of an optical resonance by ~ 5 nm V-1 (0.6 THz V-1) and between 1520 ~ 1560 nm (~ 400 linewidths) within 4 V. Finally, we consider tunable nanophotonic components enabled by the nanobenders.
- Publication:
-
Communications Physics
- Pub Date:
- September 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1038/s42005-020-00412-3
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1911.10973
- Bibcode:
- 2020CmPhy...3..156J
- Keywords:
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- Physics - Applied Physics;
- Physics - Optics;
- Quantum Physics
- E-Print:
- 24 pages, 5 + 12 figures