Dynamic Response Analysis of an Immersed Electrothermally Actuated MEMS Mirror

Abstract

MEMS mirrors have a wide range of applications, most of which require large field-of-view (FOV). Immersing MEMS mirrors in liquid is an effective way to improve the FOV. However, the increased viscosity, convective heat transfer and thermal conductivity in liquid greatly affect the dynamic behaviors of electrothermally actuated micromirrors. In this paper, the complex interactions among the multiple energy domains, including electrical, thermal, mechanical and fluidic, are studied in an immersed electrothermally actuated MEMS mirror. A damping model of the immersed MEMS mirror is built and dimensional analysis is applied to reduce the number of variables and thus significantly simplify the model. The solution of the fluid damping model is solved by using regression analysis. The dynamic response of the MEMS mirror can be calculated easily by using the damping model. The experimental results verify the effectiveness and accuracy of these models. The difference between the model prediction and the measurement is within 4%. The FOV scanned in a liquid is also increased by a factor of 1.6. The model developed in this work can be applied to study the dynamic behaviors of various immersed MEMS actuators.

Keywords

• MEMS mirror
• micromirror
• electrothermal actuation
• immersion
• MEMS in liquid