A robust and reliable stress-induced self-assembly supporting mechanism for optical devices

Abstract

The stress-induced supporting mechanism consisting of stress-induced bending beams and novel locking component used to assemble the micromachined optical devices has been realized. The tip deflection of the stress-induced bending beams has been exploited to lift up the micromachined devices. Based on the MUMPs platform, this study has successfully established an improved surface micromachining process (MUMPs-like process) to enhance the reliability of the stress-induced beams. According to the reliability test, the variation of the tip displacement is <<1% and the variation of curvature is <<<<1% after six months. Several tests relied on the BellCore standard are also achieved, the results reveal the reliability of dielectric film is much better than the metal film. Moreover, a novel locking component was also developed to accurately position the optical component and to prevent it from deviation as well. Experimental results elaborated the feasibility and stability of the novel locking component. With improved stress-induced beam and stronger locking component, the robust and reliable stress-induced self-assembly supporting mechanism for optical devices becomes available. To demonstrate the applications of the proposed mechanism, two optical devices were accomplished in this study as well.