Mechano-optically co-designed highly-scalable silicon photonic MEMS switches with quasi-buckling-free 2 × 2 horizontal adiabatic directional couplers (opens in new tab)

Micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) photonic switches based on adiabatic directional couplers (ADCs) potentially offer the advantages including large fabrication tolerance and broad bandwidth, which is essential for large-scale reconfigurable photonic integrated circuits in optical networks and artificial intelligence computing infrastructures. However, the scalability of previous ADC-based MEMS switches is challenging due to the complicated fabrication of vertical ADC switches and buckling...