Micromachined Mirrors

Book excerpt: Micromachined Mirrors provides an overview of the performance enhancements that will be realized by miniaturizing scanning mirrors like those used for laser printers and barcode scanners, and the newly enabled applications, including raster-scanning projection video displays and compact, high-speed fiber-optic components. There are a wide variety of methods used to fabricate micromachined mirrors - each with its advantages and disadvantages. There are, however, performance criteria common to mirrors made from any of these fabrication processes. For example, optical resolution is related to the mirror aperture, the mirror flatness, and the scan angle. Micromachined Mirrors provides a framework for the design of micromirrors, and derives equations showing the fundamental limits for micromirror performance. These limits provide the micromirror designer tools with which to determine the acceptable mirror geometries, and to quickly and easily determine the range of possible mirror optical resolution and scan speed.