Invited
PORT: Piezoelectric Optical Resonance Tuner

Silicon Nitride lacks second order optical non-linearity making it difficult to modulate. Traditionally thermal heaters are used to tune and trim silicon ntiride optical resonators, but they are limited by thermal time constants and consume DC power. In this talk I will demonstrate tuning of silicon ntiride resonators by integrating a piezoelectric MEMS actuator. Such a stress-optical effect achieves ultra-high speed tuning while consuming a few nanoWatts of power. We achieved bidirectional tuning by controlling voltage polarity and judicious placement of the actuator above the ring. Traditional MEMS and Optomechanical fabrication processes involve a "release" step that makes them incompatible with commercial foundry manufacturing. However PORT can also operate unreleased, achieve high speed tuning and efficient acouto-optic modulation. I will present the immediate impact the PORT on chip-scale frequency combs, magnet-free optical isolators and clock laser modulation in an atomic clock.