MICROMOTOR GRATING OPTICAL SWITCH

We describe polysilicon micromotors with diffraction gratings fabricat ed on the polished surface of the polysilicon rotor optical switching applications. The motors have rotor diameters of 0.5-2 mm with grating elements having periods of 1.80 and 3.86 mu m. These microswitches ha ve rise times of 300 mu s and settling times of 500 mu s when driven b y a 65-V switching pulse. The diffractive nature of the optical elemen ts allows for multiple optical outputs from a single input beam. Both static and dynamic optical properties of the gratings are tested with a He-Ne laser at 633 nm. (C) 1995 Optical Society of America