Tuning and reconfiguring of nanophotonic components are needed to realize systems incorporating many components. The electrostatic force can deform a structure and tune its optical response. Despite the success of electrostatic actuators, they suffer from trade-offs between tuning voltage, tuning range, and on-chip area. Piezoelectric actuation could resolve these challenges, but only pm-per-volt scale wavelength tunability has been achieved. Here we propose and demonstrate compact piezoelectric actuators, called nanobenders, that transduce tens of nanometers per volt. By leveraging the non-uniform electric field from submicron electrodes, we generate bending of a piezoelectric nanobeam. Combined with a sliced photonic crystal cavity to sense displacement, we show tuning of an optical resonance by ~ 5 nm V⁻¹ (0.6 THz V⁻¹) and between 1520 ~ 1560 nm (~ 400 linewidths) within 4 V. Finally, we consider tunable nanophotonic components enabled by the nanobenders.

需要实现纳米光子组件的调整和重新配置，以实现包含许多组件的系统。静电力会使结构变形并调整其光学响应。尽管静电执行器取得了成功，但它们仍需要在调节电压，调节范围和片上面积之间进行权衡。压电驱动可以解决这些挑战，但是仅实现了每伏特pm级的波长可调性。在这里，我们提出并演示了紧凑的压电致动器，称为纳米弯曲，每伏电压可转换数十纳米。通过利用来自亚微米电极的非均匀电场，我们产生了压电纳米束的弯曲。结合切片的光子晶体腔来检测位移，我们显示了〜5 nm V ^-1的光共振调谐 （0.6 THz V ^-1）并在4 V内在1520〜1560 nm（〜400线宽）之间。最后，我们考虑了纳米弯曲器可调谐的纳米光子组件。