Electromechanical tuning of vertically-coupled photonic crystal nanobeams

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel electromechanical tuning method for vertically-coupled photonic crystal nanobeams, demonstrating reversible wavelength control exceeding 15 nm through innovative design and fabrication techniques.

Contribution

It presents a new fabrication approach and design for tunable photonic crystal cavities on GaAs nanobeams with significant reversible wavelength tuning.

Findings

Achieved >15 nm reversible wavelength tuning

Developed a fabrication method preventing nanobeam adhesion

Demonstrated flexible and controllable electromechanical tuning

Abstract

We present the design, the fabrication and the characterization of a tunable one-dimensional (1D) photonic crystal cavity (PCC) etched on two vertically-coupled GaAs nanobeams. A novel fabrication method which prevents their adhesion under capillary forces is introduced. We discuss a design to increase the flexibility of the structure and we demonstrate a large reversible and controllable electromechanical wavelength tuning (> 15 nm) of the cavity modes.