Our experiences in MEMS product design and development are diverse. We own 22 US and international patents with 12 more pending. Our innovative tour-de-force lies in integrating device physics into our proprietary electro-mechanical and electro-static platform. This platform is being utilized to fabricate the miniature actuator (active) and sensor (passive) on a silicon substrate as the primary elements of our MEMS technology.

The Technology

After years of research, we have developed low stress and high rigidity resonant mirrors. This breakthrough design platform is utilized to minimize jitter, temperature effects, and dynamic deformation of the mirror, and to narrow the resonant frequency distribution within the wafer. With this platform, we can demonstrate outstanding advantages in performance, reliability, power consumption and simplicity.

The Core

The key design goal is to make a large scanning mirror angle in a small package size. The following design options were chosen to satisfy our design goals:

• Bulk micromachining technique, to ensure very small static deformation on large mirrors.
• Electrostatic design, to reduce package size and to minimize potential alignment/thermal issues of electro-magnetic designs.
• Multiple layers of silicon, to minimize dynamic deformation of the mirrors.
• Hermetic/vacuum package, for long-term reliability and to reduce the scanning jitter.
• Patented hinge structure, to improve the hinge rigidity, reduce hinge stress and increase the rotation angle.
• Patented rotation amplification design, to substantially increase the rotation angle and reduce the driving voltage.
• Patented stress-control design, to effectively reduce the natural frequency drift due to temperature change.

The Design

This picture shows the dynamic deformation of a large rectangular mirror based on simulation (ANSYS); it correlates very well with interferometer measurements. The mirror has very small dynamic deformation during large angle scans.

This picture shows the dynamic deformation of a large circular mirror based on simulation (ANSYS); it has a larger dynamic deformation around the hinges. This local effect does not impact its optical performance. In general, this large circular mirror still has very small dynamic deformation in both directions during large angle oscillations.

This picture shows mirror rotation along the Y-axis. This design demonstrates high structural rigidity and low hinge stress throughout the ANS product lines.

The Reality

The ANS scanning mirror achieves the world largest scan angle (>110 degrees)