This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes to fabricate an innovative multi-morph actuator. The feasibility of a micro-mirror actuating technology that can produce a MEMS deformable mirror (DM) with unprecedented capabilities will be researched. Conventional deformable mirrors suffer from inadequate speed, large size, and lack of integrated control electronics. A new actuator design should drastically reduce the power consumption for a DM, which should increase greatly the amount of integration possible with CMOS drive electronics. This extremely low voltage should allow the mirror segments to be assembled onto sub-micron circuits, which drive the mirrors and include integrated high-bandwidth position-feedback circuits.
This unique high-force multi-morph actuator should find use in a number of MEMS devices that are based on existing actuation technologies. This micro-mirror technology should also be suitable a variety of other optical applications requiring the high speed switching of micro-mirrors such as in telecommunications and in display technology.
