This paper presents a novel, micro-actuated system for beam steering or optical multiplexing applications. The system consists of polysilicon micromirror which is held at ~45° angle on a gear which has a rotational freedom of 360°. In this work, we use serpentine springs attached to a mirror with position specific "catch blocks" to hold the mirror at a desired angle on top of a rotating gear. Out-of-plane assembly is achieved using a simple, postprocessing procedure. The mirror platform is driven by an electrostatically actuated rotary drive. The mirror was tested for robustness and optical performance. Good correlation was found between experiment and various simulations.

Date Published: 16 February 2010
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 7594, MOEMS and Miniaturized Systems IX, 75940H (16 February 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.842003

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7594:
MOEMS and Miniaturized Systems IX
Harald Schenk; Wibool Piyawattanametha, Editor(s)