| Aluminum coated mylar films were used to fabricate micro electro mechanical (MEMS) beam steering, phase shift and fan out devices. The beam steering devices consisted of GaAs cavities with sloped metalized floors covered by a 30 nm thick aluminum coated 2μm mylar film diaphragm. Reproducible beam steering of up to 20° in reflection was achieved by applying a voltage across the mylar and the floor metal sufficient to collapse the diaphragm to the floor. Fan-out devices, that convert a single beam into a number of beams, were attempted by placing an aluminized mylar diaphragm over a metalized GaAs grating and by controlling the geometry of the mylar surface through the electrostatic attraction generated by a bias voltage between the mylar and grating. Phase shift devices were achieved using an aluminum mylar diaphragm suspended over semi-insulating GaAs substrates with a photoresist support structure. A ZnO window contact was placed on the back-side of the device. By varying the bias voltage between the metalized film and ZnO coating, diaphragm deflections of up to 0.9μm could be achieved with a 7mm cavity width. Furthermore, the deflection of the diaphragm could be adjusted up to 0.2μm with a back-side optical control beam and an appropriate bias, demonstrating the concept of an optically-controlled, optical-beam phase modulator. |
