Anisotropically etched silicon fibre-grippers

High precision vacuum grippers for optical fibre components are fabricated by silicon bulk micromachining. Anisotropic etching of (100) and (110) silicon wafers offers high precision and lower fabrication costs than deep reactive ion etching (D-RIE) processes. Two types of grippers are introduced: a vertical, narrow one for chips where space is limited and short fibre elements have to be assembled. For longer fibres and high angular precision a horizontal gripper with multiple gripper ledges is presented.