Micromechanical optical switches based on thermocapillary integrated in waveguide substrate

This paper proposes micromechanical optical switches which are suitable for integration in an optical waveguide substrate. The switching mechanism is based on the capillary effect induced by a temperature gradient. The switch has a simple structure which consists of a oil filled slit and a pair of microheaters. We designed two types of thermocapillary optical switches. One was a bubble-driven type, the other was an oil-column-driven type. We fabricated both types of 1/spl times/3 micro-switches and demonstrated excellent optical switching and self-latching performance.