A drive comb-drive actuator with large, stable deflection range for use as an optical shutter

Author

Grade, J.D. ; Yasumura, K.Y. ; Jerman, H.

Author_Institution

Iolon, Inc., San Jose, CA, USA

Volume

1

fYear

2003

Firstpage

568

Abstract

A comb-drive actuator has been developed with new features that increase the static deflection range to 175 /spl mu/m without sacrificing die area or switching speed. An optical shutter for a tunable laser has been made by attaching a large-deflection actuator and mirror to opposite ends of a pivoting lever. A 2.5:1 lever ratio allows the smaller mass of the mirror to balance the relatively large actuator mass to reduce vibration sensitivity. The shutter routinely achieves over 50 dB attenuation in production laser modules, with a switching speed of less than 1 ms. A bidirectional actuator with similar design features has 350 /spl mu/m of total travel with less than 3% nonlinearity.

Keywords

microactuators; micromirrors; microswitches; optical attenuators; sensitivity; 1 ms; 50 dB; actuator mass; bidirectional actuator; drive comb drive actuator; large-deflection actuator; laser modules; mirror; optical attenuation; optical shutter; static deflection; switching speed; tunable laser; vibration sensitivity; Electrostatic actuators; Laser beams; Manufacturing processes; Micromotors; Mirrors; Optical attenuators; Optical design; Optical device fabrication; Packaging; Teeth;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

TRANSDUCERS, Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems, 12th International Conference on, 2003

Conference_Location

Boston, MA, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7731-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SENSOR.2003.1215380

Filename

1215380