CN1397815A - Microphotoelectric machinery for regulatable light delay line - Google Patents

Abstract

In the present invention, a moving shaft for lateral adjustment is arranged in front of the fixed right-angle mirror array, and a moving right-angle mirror array is arranged on the moving shaft; a collimator lens A is arranged at the entrance of the fixed right-angle mirror array, and a There is a silicon V-shaped groove A, and the incident optical fiber is arranged in the silicon V-shaped groove A; the exit port of the fixed right-angle mirror array is provided with a collimating lens B, and the collimating lens B is provided with a silicon V-shaped groove B, and the silicon V-shaped groove B is provided with outgoing optical fiber. Features: 1. Using multiple reflection technology to continuously fine-tune the optical signal phase, easy to operate, highly integrated and mass-produced adjustable optical delay lines, and improve performance and reduce costs. 2. Silicon V-groove and micro-lens are used to achieve high-efficiency coupling between optical signals and optical fibers, reducing coupling loss. 3. It can be used in systems such as high-speed optical transmission, optical switching, microwave data transmission and processing, and phased array radar, and realizes bidirectional continuous phase fine-tuning of optical signals.

Description

A Micro-Opto-Mechanical Dimmable Delay Line

Technical field

The invention belongs to the category of optical instruments, in particular to an optical low-light transmission device.

Background technique

Currently, tunable optical delay lines with fixed delay or fixed delay intervals have been used in phased array radar systems. U.S. Patent 6351587 B1, and European Patents EP1099965 A2 and EP1030534 A2 disclose the technology of using a multi-fiber array to generate an adjustable optical delay line with a fixed delay interval, although this technology has been applied in an all-optical data transmission system. However, the adjustable optical delay line with this structure cannot continuously fine-tune the phase of the signal.

Contents of Invention

The object of the present invention is to provide a micro-optoelectronic mechanism for an adjustable optical delay line, which solves the above-mentioned problems and realizes the need for fine-tuning the continuous phase of the optical signal.

The purpose of the present invention is achieved in this way: a micro-optoelectronic machine with an adjustable optical delay line, the front of the fixed right-angle mirror array is provided with a horizontally adjustable moving shaft, and the moving shaft is provided with a moving right-angle mirror array; The entrance of the mirror array is provided with a collimating lens A, and the place of the collimating lens A is provided with a silicon V-shaped groove A, and the incident optical fiber is arranged in the silicon V-shaped groove A; the exit port of the fixed right-angle mirror array is provided with a collimating lens B, the collimating lens B is provided with a silicon V-shaped groove B, and an outgoing optical fiber is arranged in the silicon V-shaped groove B.

Since the present invention adopts the above technical scheme, it has the following advantages:

1. Using micro-opto-mechanical technology (MOEMS), design an adjustable optical delay line that can continuously fine-tune the phase of the optical signal, which solves the shortcomings of the fixed-delay optical delay line that cannot continuously fine-tune the signal phase; at the same time, adopts the current mature silicon micro The processing technology enables the highly integrated and mass-produced dimmable delay line of this structure, and improves the performance and reduces the cost.

2. Using micro-opto-mechanical technology to design an adjustable optical delay line, using multiple reflection technology to realize the extension of the delay optical path range, so as to realize the extension of the signal delay time in the time domain.

3. Silicon V-groove and micro-lens are used to realize efficient coupling between optical signal and optical fiber, reducing coupling loss. In particular, the right-angle mirror technology is used to realize the parallel transmission of the reflected signal relative to the incident signal. When the axially moving mirror moves off-axis, the parallel transmission of the signal and the correct coupling of the outgoing fiber are guaranteed.

4. The present invention can be widely used in high-speed optical transmission and optical switching systems, microwave data transmission and processing systems, and phased array radars. In addition, this technology can also be used in scanning optical micro-interference systems, such as optical micro-Michelson interferometers.

5. The structure of the present invention is extremely simple, easy to manufacture, convenient to operate, and can realize one-way or two-way continuous phase fine-tuning of optical signals.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of the shape and structure of a micro-opto-mechanical micro-optical delay line of the present invention;

Fig. 2 is the schematic diagram of the shape structure enlarged along the A-A line in Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of the shape and structure of the enlarged section along the line B-B in Fig. 1 .

In the picture:

1. Fixed right-angle mirror array 2. Moving right-angle mirror array 3. Collimating lens A

4. Collimating lens B 5. Incident fiber 6. Outgoing fiber

7. Input optical signal 8. Output optical signal 9. Moving axis

10. Silicon V-groove A 11. Silicon V-groove B 12. Silicon V-groove

Detailed ways

Below in conjunction with accompanying drawing, the implementation of the present invention is described in detail as follows:

In FIG. 1 , FIG. 2 , and FIG. 3 , a moving axis 9 for lateral adjustment is arranged in front of the fixed right-angle mirror array 1 , and a moving right-angle mirror array 2 is arranged on the moving axis 9 . The fixed right-angle mirror array 1 is provided with several silicon V-shaped grooves 12, and the movable right-angle mirror array 2 is provided with several silicon V-shaped grooves 12; the included angle of the silicon V-shaped grooves 12 is set to 90 degrees. The entrance of the fixed right-angle mirror array 1 is provided with a collimating lens A3, and the collimating lens A3 is provided with a silicon V-shaped groove A10, and an incident optical fiber 5 is arranged in the silicon V-shaped groove A10. The output port of the fixed rectangular mirror array 1 is provided with a collimating lens B4, and the collimating lens B4 is provided with a silicon V-shaped groove B11, and an outgoing optical fiber 6 is arranged in the silicon V-shaped groove B11. The silicon plate of silicon V-groove A10 and silicon V-shaped groove B11 adopts inductively coupled plasma (ICP) dry etching technology to make mirrors with an included angle of 60 degrees, and the mirror array is coated with highly reflective film to increase reflectivity.

Among them, the fixed right-angle mirror array 1 and the moving right-angle mirror array 2 adopt inductively coupled plasma (ICP) dry etching technology to form several identical and matching right-angle mirrors on the silicon V-shaped groove 12, and A high reflection film is coated on the mirror array to improve the reflectivity. The moving shaft 9 can adopt a silicon actuator, and under the action of the driving voltage, its axial moving distance can be continuously fine-tuned, so that the continuous fine-tuning of the phase of the optical signal can be realized by using a right-angle mirror array. When the moving axis 9 produces an off-axis deviation during the adjustment process, parallel transmission of the reflected signal relative to the incident signal can be guaranteed. In order to reduce the transmission and coupling loss of the optical signal, the collimating microlens A3 is used to collimate the input optical signal into parallel light;

In actual operation and use, the adjustable optical delay line can be realized with a multi-reflection structure by using micro-opto-mechanical technology. When the input optical signal 7 passes through the incident optical fiber 5 in the V-shaped groove 12 and passes through the collimating lens A3 of the micro-shape light concentrator, between the silicon V-shaped groove 12 of the fixed right-angle reflector array 1 and the movable right-angle reflector array 2 Multiple linear transmissions are formed between them, and the parallel transmission of the reflected signal relative to the incident signal. Finally, at the output port of the fixed right-angle mirror array 1 , the output optical signal 8 is transmitted outward through the micro-condensing collimator lens B4 and the output optical fiber 6 arranged in the V-shaped groove 12 . In particular, the collimation lens A3 and the collimation lens B4 of the silicon V-groove 12 and the microlens can realize the collimation of the incident optical signal 7 and the coupling of the optical signal to the outgoing optical fiber 6 .

In order to realize the continuous adjustment of the phase of the optical signal, the distance between the fixed right-angle mirror array 1 and the moving right-angle mirror array 2 can be adjusted through the moving shaft 9, and the adjustment relationship is: when the number of reflections of the optical signal is n=2, 6, 10, 14, ..., the realized adjustable optical path change range (OPD) is:

OPD＝2s+(n-2)·s/2,

Among them, s is the maximum axial moving distance of the movable rectangular mirror array. The moving shaft 9 can adopt a silicon actuator, which can realize continuous axial movement under the drive of a voltage signal.

In the above process, the input optical signal 7 can also pass through the output optical fiber 6, repeat the above-mentioned reverse process of optical signal transmission, and transmit the output optical signal 8 from the input optical fiber 5, so that the continuous adjustment of the bidirectional transmission phase of the optical signal can be realized.

The micro-opto-mechanical technology of the adjustable optical delay line technology of the present invention can be used in optical time division multiplexing (OTDM) systems and optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems, and is used to adjust the phase of optical signals and realize multiplexing use. It can also be used in optical digital signal processing systems to achieve phase matching between data signals and clock signals; it can also be used in microwave data transmission systems or phased array radars to generate precise delays for high-speed microwave data signals.

Claims (6)

1. A kind of micro-optoelectronic machinery of adjustable optical delay line, it is characterized in that, the front of fixed right-angle reflector array is provided with the moving axis of horizontal adjustment, and the moving axis is provided with moving right-angle reflector array; Fixed right-angle reflector array The entrance is provided with a collimating lens A, the collimating lens A is provided with a silicon V-shaped groove A, and the incident optical fiber is arranged in the silicon V-shaped groove A; the exit port of the fixed rectangular mirror array is provided with a collimating lens B, and the collimating The lens B is provided with a silicon V-shaped groove B, and an outgoing optical fiber is arranged in the silicon V-shaped groove B. 2. The micro-optoelectronic machine with adjustable optical delay line according to claim 1, characterized in that several silicon V-shaped grooves are arranged on the array of fixed right-angle mirrors. 3. A micro-opto-mechanical device with adjustable optical delay line according to claim 1, characterized in that several silicon V-shaped grooves are arranged on the array of moving right-angle mirrors. 4. A micro-opto-mechanical device with adjustable optical delay line according to claim 2 or 3, characterized in that the included angle of the silicon V-shaped groove is 90 degrees. 5 . The micro-optoelectronic machine with adjustable optical delay line according to claim 1 , wherein the angle between the silicon V-groove A and the silicon V-groove B is 60 degrees. 6 . The micro-optoelectronic machine with adjustable optical delay line according to claim 1 , wherein the moving axis is a silicon actuator. 7 .

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