[OPTICAL REVIEW Vol. 4, No. 6 (1997) 623-633]
Micromechanical Photonics
Hiroo UKITA
Faculty of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, 1-1-1, Nojihigashi, Kusatsu-shi, Shiga, 525 Japan
(Received June 20, 1997; Accepted July 7, 1997)
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.
Key words : micromechanical photonics, optical MEMS, miniaturized systems, integrated systems, surface micromachining, 3-D micromachining, photopolymerization, monolithic integration, silicon, III-V compounds.