Total dose degradation of MEMS optical mirrors

Author

Miyahira, T.F. ; Becker, H.N. ; McClure, S.S. ; Edmonds, L.D. ; Johnston, A.H. ; Hishinuma, Y.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

50

Issue

6

fYear

2003

Firstpage

1860

Lastpage

1866

Abstract

This paper discusses the effect of ionizing radiation on two types of deformable MEMS mirrors. Little effect was observed in the technology that was based on electrostatic deflection, consistent with the structural design that does not contain insulators between the two sections. Significant changes in the operating characteristics were observed for the second type of mirror, which uses piezoelectric material for actuation. The mirrors required higher total dose levels before they were affected compared with MEMS accelerometers, which can be explained by the larger interelement spacing used in the mirror arrays.

Keywords

electrostatic actuators; gamma-ray effects; micromirrors; optical arrays; piezoelectric actuators; MEMS optical mirrors; deformable mirrors; dose-induced trapped charge; electrostatic deflection; ionizing radiation effect; operating characteristics; peak deformation depth; piezoelectric actuation; total dose degradation; Biomembranes; Degradation; Electrodes; Electrostatics; Microelectromechanical devices; Micromechanical devices; Mirrors; Optical arrays; Silicon; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2003.820764

Filename

1263812