Electrostatic micromirror arrays fabricated with bulk and surface micromachining techniques

Author

Kudrle, T.D. ; Wang, C.C. ; Bancu, M.G. ; Hsiao, J.C. ; Pareek, A. ; Waelti, M. ; Kirkos, G.A. ; Shone, T. ; Fung, C.D. ; Mastrangelo, C.H.

Author_Institution

Corning Intellisense, Wilmington, MA, USA

fYear

2003

fDate

19-23 Jan. 2003

Firstpage

267

Lastpage

270

Abstract

High-density micromirror arrays have been fabricated with a process that combines the benefits of both bulk and surface micromachining. Arrays fabricated with this technique are characterized by flat mirrors, high spring constant uniformity, and high yield. Each pixel consists of a mirror-in-gimbal structure that allows the mirror to rotate about two orthogonal axes when a bias is placed on electrodes residing beneath the mirror. A new dry release process is introduced as a simple, effective alternative to critical point drying for releasing the structures.

Keywords

micromachining; micromirrors; optical fabrication; critical point drying; electrostatic micromirror arrays; high-density micromirror arrays; mirror-in-gimbal structure; surface micromachining; Electrostatics; High speed optical techniques; Micromachining; Micromirrors; Mirrors; Optical attenuators; Optical device fabrication; Optical devices; Silicon; Springs;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2003. MEMS-03 Kyoto. IEEE The Sixteenth Annual International Conference on

ISSN

1084-6999

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7744-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEMSYS.2003.1189737

Filename

1189737