Modelling and experimental verification of step response overshoot removal in electrothermally-actuated MEMS mirrors

Micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) mirrors are widely used for optical modulation, attenuation, steering, switching and tracking. In most cases, MEMS mirrors are packaged in air, resulting in overshoot and ringing upon actuation. In this paper, an electrothermal bimorph MEMS mirror that does not generate overshoot in step response, even operating in air, is reported. This is achieved by properly designing the thermal response time and the mechanical resonance without using any open-loop or closed-loop control. Electrothermal and thermomechanical lumped-element models are established. According to the analysis, when setting the product of the thermal response time and the fundamental resonance frequency to be greater than Q/2Π, the mechanical overshoot and oscillation caused by a step signal can be eliminated effectively. This method is verified experimentally with fabricated electrothermal bimorph MEMS mirrors.