Freestanding Silicon Photonic Ring and Disk Resonators

We report freestanding silicon photonic ring and disk resonators fabricated in a simplified silicon photonics process based on IMEC’s iSiPP50G standard platform that have been released by a custom MEMS post- processing step. Experimental results show high optical Q- factors up to $3.6\times 10^{4}$ for both ring and disk resonators, and extinction ratios larger than 20 dB. These functional, free- standing resonators demonstrate the compatibility of MEMS processing within a silicon photonics platform and open the possibility for large-scale integration of more complex photonic devices.