A Monolithic Gimbal Micro-Mirror Fabricated and Remotely Tuned with a Femtosecond Laser

Abstract

With the advent of ultrafast lasers, new manufacturing techniques have come into existence. In micromachining, the use of femtosecond lasers not only offers the possibility for three-dimensional monolithic fabrication inside a single optically transparent material, but also a means for remotely, and arbitrarily, deforming substrates with nanometer resolution. Exploiting this principle and combining it with flexure design, we demonstrate a monolithic micro-mirror entirely made with a femtosecond laser and whose orientation is tuned in a non-contact manner by exposing some part of the device to low energy femtosecond pulses. Given the non-contact nature of the process, the alignment can be very precisely controlled with a resolution that is many orders of magnitude better than conventional techniques based on mechanical positioners.

Elastic properties of self-organized nanogratings produced by femtosecond laser exposure of fused silica

“…The exact mechanism leading to the creation of these nanofeatures [2,[10][11][12][13] is to date not established. Nonetheless, this type of modification has been used in various photonics applications, such as polarization converters [14] or optical memory devices [15], but also for controlling the stress state in materials [16,17], inducing controlled displacements [18][19][20], or for tuning properties, such as the coefficient of thermal expansion [21]. To date, these changes of thermomechanical behavior cannot be fully understood, predicted, and controlled without a deeper * pieter.vlugter@epfl.ch understanding of the mechanical properties of the nanogratings.…”

“…To fill this gap of knowledge, here we report on the estimation of the nanolayers Young's moduli using a resonant cantilever-based experiment combined with a mechanical model of the nanostructure. From an application point of view, this precise knowledge of the mechanical properties is essential for thermal expansion compensating schemes and thermomechanical devices, as well for stress-induced functionalities, like, for instance, used in photonics devices [16,17], mechanical positioners [19,20], and for tuning the resonance frequency of mechanical resonators.…”

Fiber Optic Laser Sensor of Grating Cavity using Mirrors

“…2)The W DM also allows to make the connection between the doped fiber and the passive fiber of 8.67 km of length. The second grid (R2) was where c is the speed of light in a vacuum and n is the rate of connected to the passive fiber through a 90/10 coupler through the terminal that provides the 90% of the signal [5][6][7][8]. This grating has a Bragg wavelength , which is 1.34 nm less than 8.2.…”

Contactless Optical Packaging Concept for Laser to Fiber Coupling

“…The angle of rotation can be backcalculated by monitoring the displacement of the reflected beam in the plane of the sensor. Further details can be found in [49].…”