Micromechanical Photonics

Abstract

Micromechanical photonics is evolving in interdisciplinary research and engineering fields to merge independently developed technologies based on optics, mechanics, electronics and physical/chemical sciences. Manufacturing technologies such as semiconductor lasers, surface-micromachining, and bulk-micromachining are promoting technology fusion. New conceptual frameworks such as very short external cavity tunable laser diodes, tunable filters, optical scanners, free-space micro-optical elements, integrated optical heads, a photothermal microresonator, optical tweezers, and optical rotators are now appearing.