Potential for micromachined actuation of ultra-wide continuously tunable optoelectronic devices

Tailored scaling represents a principle of success that, both in nature and in technology, allows the effectiveness of physical effects to be enhanced. Mutation and selection in nature are imitated in technology, e.g. by model calculation and design. Proper scaling of dimensions in natural photonic crystals and our fabricated artificial 1D photonic crystals (DBRs, distributed Bragg reflectors) enable efficient diffractive interaction in a specific spectral range. For our optical microsystems we illustrate that tailored miniaturization may also increase the mechanical stability and the effectiveness of spectral tuning by thermal and electrostatic actuation, since the relative significance of the fundamental physical forces involved considerably changes with scaling. These basic physical principles are rigorously applied in micromachined 1.55-μm vertical-resonator-based devices. We modeled, implemented and characterized 1.55-μm micromachined optical filters and vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser devices capable of wide, monotonic and kink-free tuning by a single control parameter. Tuning is achieved by mechanical actuation of one or several air-gaps that are part of the vertical resonator including two ultra-highly reflective DBR mirrors of strong refractive index contrast: (i) Δn=2.17 for InP/air-gap DBRs (3.5 periods) using GaInAs sacrificial layers and (ii) Δn=0.5 for Si₃N₄/SiO₂ DBRs (12 periods) with a polymer sacrificial layer to implement the air-cavity. In semiconductor multiple air-gap filters, a continuous tuning of >8% of the absolute wavelength is obtained. Varying the reverse voltage (U=0–5 V) between the membranes (electrostatic actuation), a tuning range of >110 nm was obtained for a large number of devices. The correlation of the wavelength and the applied voltage is accurately reproducible without any hysteresis. In two filters, tuning of 127 and 130 nm was observed for about ΔU=7 V. The extremely wide tuning range and the very small voltage required are record values to the best of our knowledge. For thermally actuated dielectric filters based on polymer sacrificial layers, Δλ/ΔU=-7 nm/V is found. Received: 10 May 2002 / Published online: 8 August 2002     

Magnetic anisotropy of textured CrO2 thin films investigated by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism

Highly a-axis-textured CrO₂ films have been deposited on Al₂O₃ (0001) substrates by chemical vapor deposition. CrO₂ has been found to have highly a-axis (010)-oriented columnar growth on a Cr₂O₃ (0001) initial layer. The six-fold surface symmetry of the Cr₂O₃ initial layer leads to three equivalent in-plane orientations of the a-axis-oriented CrO₂ unit cell. We report Cr L_2,3 X-ray magnetic circular dichroism data along the surface normal and at 60° off-normal sample orientation. For a 60° sample alignment, a strong increase of the projected orbital moment could be observed for unoccupied majority t_2g states using moment analysis. Therefore, the c axis is identified as the intrinsic magnetic easy axis of CrO₂. In addition, a small spin moment and a very strong magnetic dipole term T_z have been found. Received: 8 January 2002 / Accepted: 8 January 2002     

Stability of Crystalline Ion Beams

Hyperfine Interactions - In this paper, the conditions for which three-dimensional crystalline ion beams were attained in the rf quadrupole storage ring PALLAS at a velocity of around 2800 m/s are...     

Stratifiable Families of Extremals and Sufficient Conditions for Optimality in Optimal Control Problems

It is shown that, if a parametrized fämily of extremals F can be stratified in a way compatible with the flow map generated by F, then those trajectories of the family which realize the minimal values of the cost in F are indeed optimal in comparison with all trajectories which lie in the region R covered by the trajectories of F. It is not assumed that F is a field covering the state space injectively. As illustration, an optimal synthesis is constructed for a system where the flow of extremals exhibits a simple cusp singularity.     

The role of the pion cloud in the interpretation of the valence light-cone wavefunction of the nucleon

The pion cloud renormalises the light-cone wavefunction of the nucleon which is measured in hard, exclusive photon-nucleon reactions. We discuss the leading twist contributions to high-energy exclusive reactions taking into account both the pion cloud and perturbative QCD physics. The nucleon’s electromagnetic form-factor at high Q² is proportional to the bare nucleon probability Z and the cross-sections for hard (real at large angle or deeply virtual) Compton scattering are proportional to Z². Our present knowledge of the pion-nucleon system is consistent with Z = 0.7 ± 0.2. If we apply just perturbative QCD to extract a light-cone wavefunction directly from these hard exclusive cross-sections, then the light-cone wavefunction that we extract measures the three valence quarks partially screened by the pion cloud of the nucleon. We discuss how this pion cloud renormalisation effect might be understood at the quark level in terms of the (in-)stability of the perturbative Dirac vacuum in low energy QCD.