Poly-SiGe MEMS actuators for adaptive optics

Blake C.-Y. Lin; Tsu-Jae King; Richard S. Muller

doi:10.1117/12.652247

23 January 2006 Poly-SiGe MEMS actuators for adaptive optics

Blake C.-Y. Lin, Tsu-Jae King, Richard S. Muller

Proceedings Volume 6113, MEMS/MOEMS Components and Their Applications III; 61130S (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.652247
Event: MOEMS-MEMS 2006 Micro and Nanofabrication, 2006, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

Many adaptive optics (AO) applications require mirror arrays with hundreds to thousands of segments, necessitating a CMOS-compatible MEMS process to integrate the mirrors with their driving electronics. This paper proposes a MEMS actuator that is fabricated using low-temperature polycrystalline silicon-germanium (poly-SiGe) surface-micromaching technology (total thermal budget is 6 hours at or below 425°C). The MEMS actuator consists of three flexures and a hexagonal platform, on which a micromirror is to be assembled. The flexures are made of single-layer poly-SiGe with stress gradient across thickness of the film, making them bend out-of-plane after sacrificial-layer release to create a large nominal gap. The platform, on the other hand, has an additional stress-balancing SiGe layer deposited on top, making the dual-layer stack stay flat after release. Using this process, we have successfully fabricated the MEMS actuator which is lifted 14.6 μm out-of-plane by 290-μm-long flexures. The 2-μm-thick hexagonal mirror-platform exhibits a strain gradient of -5.5×10^-5 μm^-1 (equivalent to 18 mm radius-of-curvature), which would be further reduced once the micromirror is assembled.

Citation Download Citation

Blake C.-Y. Lin, Tsu-Jae King, and Richard S. Muller "Poly-SiGe MEMS actuators for adaptive optics", Proc. SPIE 6113, MEMS/MOEMS Components and Their Applications III, 61130S (23 January 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.652247

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