A fast, large-stroke electrothermal MEMS mirror based on Cu/W bimorph

This paper reports a large-range electrothermal bimorph microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) mirror with fast thermal response. The actuator of the MEMS mirror is made of three segments of Cu/W bimorphs for lateral shift cancelation and two segments of multimorph beams for obtaining large vertical displacement from the angular motion of the bimorphs. The W layer is also used as the embedded heater. The silicon underneath the entire actuator is completely removed using a unique backside deep-reactive-ion-etching DRIE release process, leading to improved thermal response speed and front-side mirror surface protection. This MEMS mirror can perform both piston and tip-tilt motion. The mirror generates large pure vertical displacement up to 320 μm at only 3 V with a power consumption of 56 mW for each actuator. The maximum optical scan angle achieved is ±18° at 3 V. The measured thermal response time is 15.4 ms and the mechanical resonances of piston and tip-tilt modes are 550 Hz and 832 Hz, respectively.