Thermally tunable optical filter with crystalline silicon as cavity

A novel method to fabricate a thermally tunable filter with a tuning range of 26 nm from 1.504 to 1.530 mum is reported. The high-reffectivity bottom mirror is deposited in the hole formed by anisotropically etching in the basic solution from the backside of the slice with the buried SiO2 layer in silicon-on-insulator substrate as the etching-stop layer. Because of the formation of the mesa and the removing of the substrate of the hole, the power from the metal heater can be more effectively consumed in the crystalline silicon cavity. So it lowers the power consumption and the filter has a higher tuning range. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.