Silicon microoptical mirrors to make close parallel beams with conventional laser diodes

We have fabricated two kinds of silicon microoptical mirrors to make optical axes of two high-power laser diodes close at an interval of 100 μm, utilizing anisotropic etching of silicon with the self-alignment mask. One of them is a microrectangular prism mirror (MRPM). It has two orthogonal reflection mirrors, composed of polished [110] and anisotropically etched (111) planes of silicon. The other is a micro two-reflection mirror (MTRM). It has two pairs of two reflectors facing each other in parallel. The use of MTRM made the mounting process easier than that of MRPM. The use of the self-alignment mask made mirror surface smoother and it has been confirmed that full widths at half maximum (FWHM) are almost the same with and without reflections by MRPM or MTRM, respectively. It has also been shown that the etched (111) plane has the etching-condition dependence of surface roughness.