Novel Fabrication of a Curved Micro-Mirror for Optical Interconnection

초록

Increasing demand for high-capacity, compact, reliable data transmission module has driven engineers to integrate photonic components with electron devices, automotive devices and other high-end electronics. One of the applications that we proposed is an O-PCB (Optical Printed Circuit Board), which was conceived to replace the electronic data transmission lines by optical wires. O-PCB includes many optical components, like waveguides, couplers, MMIs, and optical interconnecting structures. Among these devices, optical via structure plays an important role in realizing an O-PCB application.[1] Vertical interconnecting structures are normally realized by using 45 degree mirrors. The 45 degree mirror structures are relatively easy to fabricate, and their performances are generally acceptable.[2] However, in order to improve the coupling, vertical interconnecting structures using curved mirror structures have also been proposed. Performances of the devices using curved-shape mirrors are known better than the flat mirror devices, but curved mirrors are hard to fabricate. X-ray lithography, laser ablation and other high-end fabrication methods have been used to fabricate the curved-shape devices, and it requires high fabrication costs.[3]