Our lab: Micromechanical photonics

Recent remarkable development of microsystems dates back to the 1983 when Professor R. Feynman of California University delivered a speech to a large audience of scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He presented the concept of sacrificed etching to fabricate a silicon micromotor, and pointed out the necessity of friction-less, contact sticking-less structure due to the relative increase of the surface effect in such microsystems and devices. A micromotor fabricated by Fan et al. in 1988 caused a tremendous sensation and opened the way for micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) technology. The diameter of the rotor was 120 micrometer, which rotated at 500 rpm, and the gap between the rotor and the stator was 2 micrometer. Today, many successful examples of MEMS products can be found: MEMS such as accelerometers, pressure sensors, microphones and gyros are used commercially, and various branches of industry are already including MEMS components in their new products.

Furthermore, optical MEMS, or micromechanical photonics, are evolving in interdisciplinary research and engineering fields to merge independently developed technologies based on optics, mechanics, electronics and physical /chemical sciences. Manufacturing technologies such as semiconductor lasers, surface-micromachining and bulk-micromachining are promoting this technology fusion. In addition, new devices such as optical MEMS including optical sensors, optical switches, optical scanners, optical heads, near-field probes, optical rotors and mixers, actuators, microsystems for diagnosis and treatments, and new conceptual frameworks such as micromechanical photonics including an optical encoder, a tunable laser diode with a microcantilever and nano electro mechanical systems (NEMS) are appearing.

Rapidly emerging interdisciplinary science and technology are expected to provide new capabilities in sensing, actuation, and control. Advances such as MEMS, optical MEMS, micromechanical photonics and microfluidics have led to not only to a reduction in size but also the merging of computation, communication and power with sensing, actuation and control to provide new functions. By integrating smart optoelectronics and antennas for remote control with a microstructure, the ability of microsystems to interpret and control its environment will be drastically improved. Much further work, however, is required to develop this new field to the stage of commercial production.