A silicon light modulator

There are a number of potentially powerful applications where light modulators can be useful, depending on the ability to produce miniature, inexpensive, high accuracy, high reliability modulators integrated with electronic circuitry. The authors discuss a silicon-based micromechanical light modulator that has been developed. Micromechanical fabrication technology in silicon, compatible with silicon circuit technology, has been used. A comparison of the modelled and the experimentally measured characteristics of the micromechanical light modulator is presented, and potential applications are given.

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