Magnetically-driven bi-directional optical microscanner

A magnetically-driven bi-directional optical microscanner has been designed, fabricated and characterized. Magnetic and structural modeling and analysis has been applied to the design of the scanner. The micromachined scanner can be operated bi-directionally under the condition of static operation. Under dynamic operation, the prototype scanner has shown stable bi-directional scanning performance at the operating frequency of 30 Hz, corresponding to 60 Hz in the regular uni-directional scanner. Compared with a conventional scanner, the microscanner has the advantages of low power consumption due to its small size and high scanning efficiency as a result of unique bi-directional actuation.