Single-wafer solution and optical phased array application of micro-mirror arrays with high fill factor and large sub-apertures

This paper reports the fabrication and characterization of high-fill-factor micro-mirror arrays (MMAs) with large sub-apertures (i.e., mirror pixels). The MMAs are fabricated by a single-wafer fabrication process without any wafer bonding/transfer processes and are directly surface-mountable after the fabrication. A fabricated 4 × 4 MMA achieves a combined optical aperture of 6.4 mm × 6.4 mm with ~90% fill factor and <±25° scan range in both x- and y- rotational axes. Preliminary optical-phased-array beam steering results are also demonstrated.