Abstract

We show a tunable MEMS grating design which permits analog control over the diffraction angle. This is accomplished by analog actuation of the grating beams in the lateral direction. Compared to other tunable grating implementations (e.g. the Grating Light Valve¹ and the Polychroma- tor²), our device trades deflection range for angular resolution. Applications for high resolution analog tunable gratings include microspectrometers, external cavity tunable lasers, and thermal compensators for wavelength multiplexer-demultiplexers. In this paper, we describe two implementations: electrostatic and piezoelectric.

© 2002 Optical Society of America