D1. High frequency in-plane MEMS actuator

This work reports the design, implementation and testing of a parallel plate actuator providing an in-plane motion and achieving a travel range that is larger than 1.5 μm at a resonance frequency of 89.9 kHz, which indicate the high velocity the actuator can accommodate while being in resonance under atmospheric pressure. The modes of the micro-mechanical structure where analysed using the finite element ANSYS tool and the effect of the flexure structure non-linearity where taken into account program and minimized by the optimized design. A structure comprising the MEMS actuator and a micromirror is fabricated using the Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) technology on Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) wafer. The structure is characterized optically by counting the interferometric fringes formed in-between the micromirror surface and a standard single-mode fiber at the wavelength of 1550 nm.