Patent Application: US-201313960484-A

Abstract:
devices which operate on gradient optical forces , in particular , nanoscale mechanical devices which are actuable by gradient optical forces . such a device comprises a waveguide and a dielectric body , with at least a portion of the waveguide separated from the dielectric body at a distance which permits evanescent coupling of an optical mode within the waveguide to the dielectric body . this results in an optical force which acts on the waveguide and which can be exploited in a variety of devices on a nano scale , including all - optical switches , photonic transistors , tuneable couplers , optical attenuators and tuneable phase shifters .

Description:
the applicant is the first to demonstrate the gradient optical force which beforehand had only been theoretically predicted . furthermore , the applicant has demonstrated the practical application of the gradient optical force in a silicon photonic circuit , and further established that this force can be substantial in driving micro - and nanomechanical devices . detection of optical forces in an integrated silicon photonic circuit has been made possible through an embedded nanomechanical resonator . the displacement caused by the optical force is detected through evanescent coupling of the nanomechanical resonator to a dielectric substrate . the applicant has made the surprising discovery that at modest optical power the optical force produced in this way on a photonic waveguide is significant , with a magnitude comparable to that of most commonly used actuation forces in electromechanical systems . the gradient optical force is distinct from radiation pressure which is the result of the transfer of momentum from photons to mechanical structures on which they impinge . the transverse gradient force however originates from the lateral gradient of a propagating light field . gradient force is generated by asymmetrically engineering the confined lightwave mode in an optical waveguide . it only becomes significant when the cross section of the waveguide is comparable to the wavelength of the guided mode . due to the strong confinement of light in a submicron waveguide , the optical force is significantly enhanced at smaller dimensions . controlling and harnessing the gradient optical force as taught herein allows solid state devices to operate under new physical principles . immediate applications include all - optical switching , reconfigurable photonics etc . the following examples illustrate a generic configuration to exhibit the optical force effect which forms the basis for various devices subsequently described , and nanoscale mechanical structures are introduced which , for example , may have masses on the order of picograms and which are significantly affected by tiny optical forces . the configuration is schematically shown in fig1 . instead of two - coupled waveguides ( as described in references 3 and 4 ), here only one free - standing single mode waveguide 1 is utilized . the force on the single waveguide 1 can be understood similarly to the coupled waveguide pair in which the eigen - energy of the system is dependent on the gap between the waveguide and the substrate . an alternative formalism to derive the force is to consider the asymmetric distribution of the maxwell stress tensor along the cross - section of the waveguide with the proximity of the substrate . then the force on the waveguide can be evaluated directly by integration of maxwell stress tensor on the waveguide surface . the analytical and numerical calculation methods are similar to those disclosed in reference 3 . fig1 a is a three - dimensional schematic illustration of a free - standing waveguide beam 1 supported by a multimode interference structure 2 at each end . the overlaid optical mode plot displays the in - plane electrical field distribution of te mode e x , calculated by finite - element - method ( fem ) simulation . the asymmetric guided mode in the free standing waveguide is weakly evanescently coupled with the substrate 3 , and it is the corresponding field gradient that produces a net optical force on the waveguide 1 . at a given optical input power , this force on the waveguide 1 strongly depends on the gap between waveguide 1 and substrate 3 as plotted in fig1 d . the results clearly show that the magnitude of the optical force is on the order of piconewton per micrometer , which is substantial for actuating nanomechanical devices . as the gap is varied , the effective refractive index n eff of the waveguide system is rapidly modulated , as shown in fig1 c . thus the transverse displacement of the waveguide 1 will induce a phase shift in the device which is measured by on - chip phase - sensitive interferometers . this phase shift can be expressed as : δϕ = δ ⁡ ( 2 ⁢ π λ ⁢ n eff ⁢ l ) = 2 ⁢ π λ ⁢ ( l ⁢ ∂ n eff ∂ z + n eff ⁢ ∂ l ∂ z ) ⁢ δ ⁢ ⁢ z , ( equation ⁢ ⁢ 1 ) where λ is wavelength and l is the length of the nanomechanical beam and δz is the beam displacement . the first term is dominant while the second term is negligible . through the measuring the motion of the nanomechanical beam , the optical force can be quantified with high sensitivity . the force generation scheme discussed here is very universal , and many different device variations might be derived from the applicant &# 39 ; s generic device design . such an integrated silicon photonic circuit is essentially cmos compatible . to demonstrate this optical force , the applicant exploits the high sensitivity offered by nanoelectromechanical systems ( nems ) integrated in a silicon photonic circuit fabricated with a cmos compatible process . an example of such a circuit is shown in fig2 . the simplest form consists of a single mode strip waveguide 1 enclosed by two grating couplers 2 ( fig2 b ). to form the air bridge waveguide 1 , a portion of the waveguide 1 is released from the substrate 3 by chemically removing the silicon dioxide layer underneath . this released part of the waveguide 1 becomes an embedded nems beam in the photonic circuit . a scanning electron microscope picture of an exemplary suspended , 10 μm long , 500 nm wide beam is shown in fig2 b . the separation gap between the beam 1 and the substrate 3 can be varied during fabrication by controlling the etching time , and typically achieved in the range of 300 - 600 nm . the use of grating couplers 2 enables efficient coupling of light into and out of the planar waveguides with an out - of - plane optical fibre array . the applicant has routinely achieved coupling efficiency of 14 % ( or − 8 . 5 db ) during the fabrication process . to provide better mechanical clamping and obtain reproducible devices with varying lengths , two low - loss multimode interference ( mmi ) devices 2 are fabricated to define and support the suspended waveguide beam 1 as shown in fig2 c . the mmi design is optimized to provide low optical insertion loss meanwhile maintain high mechanical quality factor . the pair of mmi couplers 2 in the illustrated example introduces additional 6 db optical loss . nanomechanical devices are known to be superior force sensors ( see reference 7 ). the force applied on the beam 1 induces the device &# 39 ; s nanomechanical motion , which is further amplified if the force is modulated at the device &# 39 ; s mechanical resonance frequency . in the described photonic circuit configuration , the suspended beam 1 , including the air gap , comprises a part of the waveguide . the phase of the propagating light is modulated by the transverse motion of the beam 1 , which changes the air gap size and thus alternates the effective index of the waveguide mode ( as illustrated by fig1 c ). using an on - chip interferometer , such as a fabry - perot or mach - zehnder interferometer , this phase change can be read out as transmission amplitude variation through the device . in the measurement setup illustrated in fig2 a , two wavelength tuneable laser sources 5 , 6 are used in a pump - probe scheme ; one of which ( 6 ) is amplitude modulated to generate a dynamic ( i . e . time - varying ) optical force on the beam 1 and the other ( 5 ) acts as the probe for the displacement readout . the te mode is selected by the polarization controller 7 and launched into the device through one single - mode polarization - maintaining ( pm ) fibre aligned with the input coupler . another fibre aligned with the output coupler collects the transmitted signal . the overall transmission of system is near 4 × 10 − 3 ( or − 24 db ) with most loss at the grating couplers (− 10 ± 1 db each ) and the two mmi couplers 2 (− 4 db total ). in fig3 a , the transmission spectrum of a typical device is shown . the grating coupler shows a bandwidth of nearly 20 nm . the transmission oscillates with the wavelength at a periodicity of ˜ 1 . 9 nm , corresponding to the free spectral range ( fsr ) of the fabry - perot interferometer formed between the two grating couplers . the fringes allow interferometric detection of the motion of the device , with the wavelength of the actuation laser is set at the maximum slope of the transmission . the probe laser wavelength is offset by 5 ˜ 10 nm from the actuation wavelength to allow sufficient filtering of actuation light before the photodetector . the sensitivity of the system is first calibrated , by measuring the device &# 39 ; s thermomechanical motion . the displacement noise power spectral density ( psd ) of the beam at its resonance can be expressed as s z 1 / 2 =√{ square root over ( 4k b tq /( mω 0 3 ))}, where k b is boltzmann &# 39 ; s constant , t is the absolute temperature , q is the mechanical quality factor , ω 0 is the angular resonance frequency and m is the effective mass . for a 10 μm long beam with a resonance frequency of 8 . 87 mhz and quality factor of 1 , 850 in vacuum , s z 1 / 2 is calculated to be 3 . 8 × 10 − 13 m · hz − 1 / 2 . this thermomechanical motion induces phase noise in the interferometer and thus the transmitted intensity of the probe light . fig3 c shows the measured output noise spectrum at the photodetector with 12 . 5 mw probe light power . using calculated displacement noise value , the noise floor of the spectrum corresponds to displacement noise psd of 7 . 2 × 10 − 14 m · hz − 1 / 2 . the total 5 pw · hz − 1 / 2 optical power noise floor is comprised of detector noise ( 2 . 5 pw · hz − 1 / 2 ) and the noise from the diode laser and laser amplifier ( noise figure ˜ 5 db ). to measure the dynamic response of the device , a network analyzer 8 is used to modulate the actuation laser &# 39 ; s amplitude and measure the frequency dependence of the transmitted probe signal . in fig3 b , the optically driven mechanical response of the devices at varying pump light modulation amplitude is shown . the measured mechanical resonance of the waveguide beam shows a quality factor of ˜ 2000 . the actual optical power on the waveguide beam can be derived from the transmitted power , taking account of the intra - cavity enhancement factor of the fabry - perot interferometer ( see reference 8 ). the corresponding driving force on the beam can be calculated from the beam &# 39 ; s vibration amplitude . in this way , the optical force magnitude can be determined at any given optical power . for the beam with a separation of 360 nm from the substrate , the optical force is evaluated to be 0 . 45 pn / μm / mw . this value agrees well with the theoretical results presented in fig1 d and in the literature . when excited to high vibration amplitude , the waveguide beam 1 behaves nonlinearly , displaying an uncommon frequency - softening effect due to the residual compressive stress in the silicon film . the critical amplitude of the nonlinearity is given by a c = ω 0 ( l / π ) 2 (√{ square root over ( 3 )} ρ / eq ) 1 / 2 theoretically and can be determined by fitting the backbone curve which connects the maxima of the resonance response curves . from the data shown in fig3 b , the critical amplitude is measured to be 2 . 5 nm , fairly close to the theoretically determined value of 2 . 14 nm . this provides yet another calibration of the optical force measurement . as illustrated in fig1 d , the optical force is a function of the separation gap g between the waveguide beam 1 and the substrate 3 . to further elucidate the mechanism of the optical force , the applicant has measured several devices with varying gap sizes as well as the beam lengths ; the result of which is shown in fig3 e . the measured optical force shows clear dependence on the gap size , indicating good agreement with the theoretical model . it is also found the optical force is not dependent on the length of the beam . this rules out the photothermal effect as the mechanism of the observed optical force which should be independent of g but increases with beam length due to thermal heating and expansion from optical absorption . the optical force can also be quantified by static force measurement . a static “ dc ” optical power on the beam will also exert a static force on it . this static optical force is observed experimentally by measuring the resonance frequency shift of the beam due to increased probe light power . during such measurement , the actuation light power and modulation amplitude are kept constant , and the probe light power is tuned . it is clear from the exemplary data presented in fig5 a that the resonance frequency shifts upwards with increasing optical power . again , this rules out the photothermal effect as the cause for the resonance frequency is observed to have a negative temperature coefficient in a careful temperature controlled experiment , as illustrated in fig5 b . the positive frequency shift can be explained by the increased tension in the beam by the increasing static optical force as more optical power is added . the measurement results show the resonance frequency is tuned by optical power at 7 . 5 khz / mw . this frequency shift is intensified by the curvature of the beam due to the buckling caused by the residual stress from the fabrication . a simple finite element modelling produces very accurate estimation of this frequency tuning effect . the fitting to the frequency shift yields a static optical force of 0 . 5 pn / μm / mw , in good agreement with dynamic force measurement . the magnitude of this transverse optical force on the waveguide is comparable with other types of charge - based actuation forces commonly employed in nanomechanical devices , such as capacitive , piezoelectric and magnetic forces . further , at nanoscale , electromechanical motion signals are exceedingly small . these tiny signals are generally dominated by parasitic signals on the chip , mostly from direct coupling from the electrical actuation signal . in the photonic waveguide , there is minimum cross - talk between photons in the actuation channel and the sensing channels . the all - optical scheme presented herein not only provides efficient actuation , but also significantly improves the signal quality of a nanomechanical resonator . even more significantly , the force generated in optical frequency domain promises an enormous operation bandwidth . this bandwidth is fundamentally limited by the carrier light frequency ( 2 × 10 14 hz ). practically this is limited by the bandwidth of the input - output couplers ( 2 . 5 thz ) implying 3 orders of magnitude improvement over what has been obtained with known electronic actuators . this extremely wide bandwidth (& lt ; ps response time ), in combination with the high transduction gain , low readout noise will allow a broad range of exciting experiments and devices based upon ultrafast detection and sub - picosecond stroboscopic measurement . beyond , arrays of spatially separated nanomechanical resonators can be fabricated along a photonic “ bus ” for efficient synchronization and high speed optical intercommunications . in this way , one can achieve long - range coherent signal processing without locally addressing individual devices . this eventually will lead to large scale integration of nanomechanical structures and enable new device functions in both mechanical and optical domains . the strong coupling of light and mechanical oscillation will produce a host of interesting new phenomena that finds practical use as described further herein and in a host of other envisaged applications , such as mechanical kerr effect , optomechanical parametric amplifications , all - optically controlled tuneable filters , couplers , ( de ) modulators , mixers etc . on the fundamental fronts , recently we have evidenced huge stride in advancing micro and nanomechanical systems to approaching quantum regimes . the techniques presented herein seamlessly integrate nanomechanical devices that are size - matched to photonic waveguides meanwhile offers highest engineering flexibility . the elucidated optical force allows efficient coupling between optical field and mechanical vibration at the smallest obtainable mechanical and optical volumes , simultaneously providing high bandwidth and the sensitivity that is required for coherent control of nanomechanical structures . it is foreseeable that ultra - high frequency , active cooled or self cooled , practical quantum devices could become a realistic prospect through exploitation of the transverse optical forces as presented herein . the devices disclosed herein were fabricated on a silicon - on - insulator ( soi ) wafer . the silicon layer is thinned down by thermal oxidation and subsequent wet etch . the devices ( waveguides and couplers ) were then patterned by electron beam lithography and a plasma dry etching process . the cantilevers are then released from the substrate using a photo - lithography patterned mask and buffered oxide etching ( boe ). in addition to achieving all - photonic transduction of the nanomechanical beam , it is possible to detect the displacement of the beam without having to employ interferometric techniques . an exemplary cantilevered waveguide 40 is illustrated in fig1 . the waveguide is similar to the waveguide described above , however during fabrication a gap 43 is created such that the suspended waveguide is cantilevered . movement of the cantilever modulates the total transmission of the circuit and as such the displacement is measured in the transmitted optical signal . the applicant has demonstrated displacement sensitivity of 40 fm / hz 1 / 2 at room temperature , which is comparable with state - of - the - art milli - kelvin detection techniques of similar nanomechanical devices . in the illustrated waveguide the cantilevers 41 , 42 are 3 μm long with a lateral gap 43 between them of 200 nm . the estimated optical loss caused by this relatively small ( compared to the optical wavelength ) is ˜ 3 db . fig1 c presents the simulated transmission from one cantilever to the other as a function of the vertical offset of the left cantilever . the asymmetry in the transmission profile is due to the additional coupling of the optical fields in the waveguide to the substrate . an exemplary measurement setup is illustrated in fig6 a . an array of fibres is aligned to the grating couplers to provide convenient input and output of optical signals . light from two tuneable diode lasers 5 , 6 at different wavelengths is coupled into the device which is mounted in a vacuum chamber with a base pressure of 1 × 10 − 5 torr . the first laser 6 is amplitude modulated to apply an optical actuation force to the device . the second detection laser 5 is used in cw mode and its transmission through the circuit is measured with a photodetector . a narrow band etalon filter 9 removes the light at the actuation wavelength before reaching the photodetector in order to optimize the measurement dynamic range . the frequency response and noise spectrum of the photodetector signal is then measured with a network / spectrum analyzer 8 . the sensitivity of the system is first assessed by measuring the thermomechanical motion of the devices when the actuation laser is turned off . in fig6 b , the noise power spectrum density ( psd ) of the transmitted detection laser signal in a wide frequency range is displayed . the applied optical power at the input coupler is 50 mw ; the calibrated power on the first cantilever is − 7 . 5 mw ; after propagating through the circuit 200 pw power is received at the photodetector . the spectrum shows two prominent peaks at 13 . 07 and 13 . 36 mhz , corresponding to the out - of - plane fundamental mechanical resonances of the two cantilevers . the difference of their resonance frequency is due to the slight misalignment of the etching window during the wet etching , causing a different undercut at the clamping point . the two resonances show nearly identical quality factors of − 4500 in vacuum . the spectral density of thermomechanical displacement noise at the resonance frequency is s z 1 / 2 =√{ square root over ( 4k b t 0 q /( mω 0 3 ))} where k b is the boltzmann constant , t 0 is the absolute temperature ( 300k ), q is the mechanical quality factor , ω 0 is the angular resonance frequency and m the modal mass of the cantilever . the two thermomechanical resonances have different values due to their different resonant frequencies . by comparing the expected displacement noise with the measured noise spectrum , we can determine the displacement sensitivity r 0 = δt / δz of the system , which is found to be 1 . 6 μm − 1 , close to the numerical prediction at ˜ 25 nm offset ( fig8 d ). in fig6 d , the noise floor of the measured noise spectrum is 16 pw / hz 1 / 2 , translates to 40 fm / hz 1 / 2 displacement resolution at 7 . 5 mw optical power on the left cantilever . the noise level is constituted by the 13 pw / hz 1 / 2 noise equivalent power ( nep ) of the photodetector and the 9 pw / hz 1 / 2 shot - noise of the 200 μw optical signal . the achieved displacement sensitivity is remarkable considering the simple room temperature measurement configuration . by improving the grating couplers and using a higher power laser source , the detection sensitivity can reach the shot - noise limit and be further improved as p − 1 / 2 . when the actuation laser 6 is turned on and its amplitude is modulated , an oscillating gradient optical force is applied to the waveguide cantilevers 41 , 42 . photothermal excitation can be neglected because it is found to be three orders of magnitude weaker than the gradient optical force . the temperature rise from photothermal absorption is estimated to be on millikelvin level , due to the low absorption coefficient at telecomm wavelength and the high thermal conductivity of silicon . the driven response of the devices in amplitude and phase is shown in fig7 . the two cantilevers 41 , 42 show different resonant amplitudes . this is expected because the actuation optical powers on the two cantilevers are different due to the loss (˜ 3 db ) occurring at the gap between them . thus we can attribute the resonance peak at 13 . 07 mhz to the cantilever on the left , whose amplitude is around twice that of the one at 13 . 87 mhz since the light is launched into the devices from the left coupler . using the calibrated responsivity r 0 of the system , the vibration amplitude can be determined from the measured signal . at the resonance frequency , the driving force f is related to the vibration amplitude a ( ω 0 ) of the cantilever by f = ka ( ω 0 )/ q . in fig7 b , the resonant response of the first cantilever is measured in dependence of laser modulation amplitude , showing a linear relationship . the optical force can then be derived as ˜ 0 . 5 ± 0 . 1 pn / mw / μm , in close agreement with the measured value in similar state - of - the - art photonic circuits . the measurement error is mostly due to the uncertainty in determining of the actual optical power on the device . the gradient optical force originates from the asymmetric optical field gradient in the waveguide due to coupling with the substrate . therefore , this force , as well as the optical detection method described above , is intrinsically wideband . thus , this complete optical transduction scheme can potentially gain unprecedented operation bandwidth . the amplitude modulation detection that is applied here is essentially a non - interferometric method . it is distinct from interferometric methods in which the mechanical motion induced optical phases shift is measured . thus the measurement does not require a coherent light source and is immune to the phase noise of the laser . for practical sensing applications , the non - interferometric detection method is especially attractive because integrated low - cost light sources can be used . with future development of other integrated photonic components , including light sources , modulators and detectors , an entire coupled nanomechanical - nanophotonic system can be realized on a single chip . such a compact , robust system with high sensitivity will find a wide range of applications , such as chemical and biological sensing and optical signal processing . the applicants have been able to create a number of devices that make use of the present invention , some of which are now described to illustrate the practical application of the above techniques . fig8 illustrates in schematic form a first practical embodiment of the present invention , taking the form of what might be termed a photonic transistor 20 . the photonic transistor comprises a gate waveguide 21 which serves as a signal input for a control signal . a high q optical resonator 22 is coupled to the gate waveguide 21 so as to enhance the input optical signal ; for the purposes of this example the resonator 22 is a microdisk resonator but may be a of a ring or racetrack type . a second waveguide 23 ( shown schematically ) is coupled to the optical resonator and , in accordance with the invention , is suspended ( i . e . spaced from the substrate ) so as to form a nanomechanical resonator . the interaction between the optical resonator 22 , which acts as a force amplifier , and the suspended waveguide 23 ( nanomechanical resonator ) means that a cw optical signal propagating within the waveguide 23 can be modulated by an optical signal within the gate waveguide 21 . this is analogous to an electronic transistor whereby the current at the base determines whether charge may flow between the emitter and collector . in the photonic transistor , a high optical q and a high mechanical q can result in the input signal in the gate waveguide 21 being amplified , much in the same way that an electronic transistor is employed in a common emitter amplifier . in this way , a small input modulation can result in , effectively , an amplification of this modulation within the suspended waveguide 23 . fig9 illustrates in schematic form a second practical embodiment of the present invention , taking the form of what might be termed a photonic switch 30 . in this embodiment , two cantilevered waveguides 31 , 32 are embedded in a photonic circuit . as described above , the buckling of one cantilever by an applied optical force modifies the transmission of that waveguide . the photonic switch can be used in the opposite sense to prevent an optical signal being relayed to a part of the optical circuit that is bad by cutting off that part of the circuit . fig9 b illustrates such a practical example . a signal bus 35 within an optical circuit has a number of branches , one of which is connected to a sub - circuit 36 which is known to be bad . this branch has a cantilevered waveguide 32 in accordance with the present invention and is operatively controlled by a control bus 31 by way of a disk resonator 33 to which both are optically coupled . a signal sent to the control bus 31 causes a displacement of one of the cantilevered portions of the waveguide 32 , thus “ cutting off ” the bad sub - circuit 36 . in addition , because the cantilevered waveguide permits variable attenuation of an optical signal , the photonic switch 30 can also be used to control the amount of optical power within an optical signal that is passed on to various sub - circuits forming part of a larger photonic circuit . in fig9 b above , it is clear that a control signal of less power would cause a smaller displacement of the cantilevered portion of the waveguide 32 and attenuate , rather than cut off , the optical signal . note that in such embodiments , it is advantageous that one of the cantilevered portions of the waveguide is substantially elongate compared to the relatively shorter other cantilevered portion . having such a longer cantilevered portion means that a greater range of displacement can be achieved ; the other cantilevered portion being shorter means that it is comparatively stationary while the other is free to move . however , having two cantilevered portions of more or less equal length may still serve the same purpose although the same degree of tuning may be harder to achieve . it is of note that a cantilever has a greater range of movement than a continuous beam and as such even having cantilevered portions of similar length can produce a larger attenuation range . a further application of such a device is as a nanomechanical optical modulator , whereby the light passing through the photonic circuit can be modulated . to effect such modulation , a corresponding modulation would be applied to the control line . in a similar fashion to the photonic transistor shown in fig8 and described above , such modulation could of course be amplified , thus allowing a comparatively smaller control signal modulation to effect a larger modulation within the optical circuit . a combination of a number of such photonic switches clearly may be used to provide a comprehensive array of controls over an optical circuit ; determining which sub - circuits receive an optical signal , the power of the optical signal that said sub - circuit receives , as well as providing protection in the form of automatic or selective cut - offs to either protect sub - circuits or isolate non - working sub - circuits . for metrological applications , a cantilevered waveguide as illustrated in fig1 can be used as a scanning probe 40 . fig1 a is an optical microscope image of end to end coupled waveguide nanocantilevers 41 , 42 in the middle of a waveguide and a grating coupler at each end . fig1 b is a scanning electron microscope image of the suspended portion , clearly showing the separation 43 in the suspended waveguide that creates the two cantilevers 41 , 42 . as described in detail above , relatively minor displacement of the cantilevers results in a dramatic effect on the transmission of the device . fig1 illustrates a tuneable coupler 50 in a photonic filter in which two freely suspended waveguides 51 , 52 extend parallel to , and are optically side - coupled to , one another . a tuneable coupler is an essential component in a photonic filter and the coupler illustrated here tunes the gap between the waveguide 51 and the optical resonator 53 . an all - optical device such as this does away with the need for material doping and electrode deposition because unlike state - of - the - art tuneable couplers no thermal heating or electrostatic tuning is required . when an optical force is applied , i . e . by inserting a “ tweezer ” light signal into the second waveguide 52 , the suspended waveguides 51 , 52 move with respect to each other , thus modifying the gap therebetween . the change in the gap causes a corresponding modification of the coupling intensity between the waveguides 51 , 52 and also between the first waveguide 51 and the optical resonator 53 . if the ring resonator is used as a wavelength filter , achieving a high extinction ratio requires close matching between the amplitude loss per round trip and the coupling coefficient . however , precision matching is difficult to achieve with state - of - the - art microfabrication techniques . the illustrated coupler 50 allows precise control of the gap spacing between the waveguide 51 and the microresonator 53 and as such highest extinction can be achieved . fig1 b illustrates the change in the gap caused by the “ tweezer ” light signal , and fig1 c demonstrates how in this example a 30 db extinction ratio may be achieved within 50 nm of tuning . tuneable phase shifting can also be realised in a device 60 , as illustrated in fig1 , which is fabricated as a portion of a waveguide or embedded in a microresonator to achieve precise phase matching . the major advantage of this is the negligible insertion loss that can be achieved . the phase tuning is achieved by changing the refractive index of the waveguide 61 . an analogy may be drawn between a tuneable capacitor consisting of two parallel plates in which the gap can be modified . the variance of this gap in the optical system is provided by the optical force which in turn provides the phase tuning . the coupling between the waveguide 61 and the dielectric substrate 62 from which it is spaced acts like an electromagnetic buffer that stores then releases energy in the form of light , thus introducing a phase shift to a propagating optical signal . when the device 60 is placed in a microresonator , the phase tuning effect can be significantly enhanced because the circulating power is enhanced by the optical finesse of the microresonator , adding proportionately to the optical force . tuneable switches ( e . g . 71 ), phase shifters ( e . g . 73 ), and couplers ( e . g . 72 ) can be further used as building blocks to assemble more complex photonic filters ( e . g . 70 ). these filters could be engineered to have multiple poles and zeros depending on the numbers and the topologies of these tuneable components . although there are many configurations one can devise for actual filter implementation , we exemplify a typical filter construction 70 in fig1 which represents a two - pole two - zero filter . the mechanically - deformable tuneable devices 71 , 72 , 73 are utilized as active control elements to set the coupling ratios and phases of each individual ring resonator 74 , which in turn determine the zeros and the poles of the filter . a synchronised oscillator 80 is illustrated in fig1 . a series of ( example shown : four ) nanomechanical resonators 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 are fabricated on the same photonic bus 85 . the light travelling along the bus passes from one resonator to the next and thus provides a synchronising force on all the nanomechanical resonators . in addition , the light may be further looped back from the last resonator 84 to the first resonator 81 which enhances said synchronisation . such synchronised oscillators will be ideal for us as ultrastable signal sources because of the very low phase noise that can be achieved in such a configuration . further modifications and improvements may be added without departing from the scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims . 1 . cannon , t . et al . temporal behavior of radiation - 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