Subwavelength grating reflectors in MEMS tunable Fabry-Perot infrared filters with large aperture

This paper presents a novel tunable infrared filter applying a subwavelength grating that substitutes the distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) in tunable Fabry-Perot (FP) filters to reduce cost and fabrication effort. It consists of uniformly arranged disc resonators which are made of 100 nm thick aluminum at a 200 nm Si3N4 membrane carrier that stands freely after fabrication. The dimensions of the subwavelength structures were optimized based on finite difference time domain (FDTD) analysis. The fabrication sequence consists of silicon MEMS technology steps like deposition and patterning of electrodes and of isolation layers, silicon etching, and wafer bonding, and it includes nano imprint lithography for forming the subwavelength structures at wafer level. The samples have an aperture of 2 mm and are mechanically tuned by electrostatic forces with tuning voltages up to 80 V. They show the typical characteristics of FP filters but with high peak transmittance within a remarkably large wavelength range (T < 50% @ 2.5 m ... 6.5 m) spanning over 5 interference orders of the optical resonator. The optical performance was measured by Fourier transform infrared spectrometer and compared to the simulation results. It shows a widely good agreement between calculation and measurement.