A 2D Resonant MEMS Scanner with an Ultra-

compact Wedge-like Multiplied Angle Amplification

for Miniature LIDAR Application
Liangchen Ye, Gaofei Zhang,Zhen You* Chi Zhang
State Key Lab. of Precision Measurement Tech. and Instr. Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems
Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University Chinese Academy of Sciences
Beijing, 100084, P. R. China Beijing, 100084, P. R. China
[email protected]

Abstract— In this paper, we propose a two-dimensional scanning mirror and not suitable for most other resonant MEMS
resonant MEMS scanning mirror with an integrated ultra- scanner. ZHANG et al. demonstrate [10] a MEMS scanner
compact multiplied angle amplification for miniature LIDAR operating in liquid which utilize the well-known “Snell’s
application. A wedge-like structure is designed to magnify window” optical effect to enlarge scanning angle. This method
scanning angle of a 2D MEMS scanner which can also reduce achieves rather large scanning FOV, while it is only suitable for
driving voltage, decrease maximum stress and increase reliability MEMS scanner immersed in liquid and operating at low
and life. Compared with other angle amplification, the wedge does frequency for rather large damping coefficient than in air.
not consist of any complex optical lens or structures. The Centimeter scale of space increasing in package is needed for
amplification is more compact than former that only 1mm
above angle application.
increasing in height of package is needed for enlarging angle. A
double scanning angle amplification is experimented. Appling a In this paper, we demonstrate a new conception of wedge-
voltage of 12.5V peak-to-peak(7.5Vac at frequency of 710Hz and like scanning angle amplification. The structure does not occupy
5Vac at frequency of 997Hz) results in optical scan of 45.3° in x- much space compared to origin MEMS mirror. Moreover,
axis and 42.6° in y-axis at atmosphere pressure which is rather low further angle amplification can be set after wedge amplification.
driving voltage for 2D resonant MEMS scanner at present. Principle of wedge-like angle amplification is detailed proposed
in section II. Performance of MEMS scanner is designed to meet
Keywords—MEMS scanner; micromirror; optical angle
the demand of a miniature LIDAR. A piezoelectric driven
amplification; multiplied amplification; LIDAR
resonant MEMS scanner with a double angle amplification is
I. INTRODUCTION fabricated. In section III, experiment is conducted to validate
function of this amplification. Using semitransparent
LIDAR(Light Detection and Ranging) is widely used in membrane, we can clearly see double angle scan pattern against
many applications like target detection, Advanced Driver origin. Two-dimensional MEMS scanner with rather low
Assistance System (ADAS) and automatic piloted driving. driving is realized. Two-dimension scan is experimented to
These applications have recently created a new demand for low- ensure a stable scan for miniature LIDAR application.
cost, low-power and small-package three-dimension LIDAR.
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) scanning mirrors II. DESIGN OF WEDGE-LIKE MULTIPLIED ANGLE
provide a promising choice to miniaturize LIDAR’s package AMPLIFICATION
and decrease power-consumption[1]-[5]. Scanning angle is a
key characteristic of MEMS mirror despite its power, size, speed Our goal is to design a miniature LIDAR at a rate of 10fps
and lifetime. Scanning angle can be simply enlarged by applying (frames per second) with FOV of 40°×40° and angle measuring
higher driving voltage which results in higher power dissipation. accuracy of 0.2°. A resonant MEMS mirror with scan frequency
Respect to material’s fatigue strength, maximum scanning angle of about 1kHz and optical scan angle of 40° in two axis is needed.
is limited for twisting to a large extend at resonant frequency [6]. Avoiding energy loss of laser beam when reflected by scanner
For future MEMS LIDAR applications, compact optical angle [2], mirror size is at least 2mm (twice larger than size of laser
amplification is required for MEMS scanner. spot).

Some efforts have been made to increase MEMS mirror’s We design a MEMS scanning mirror driven by piezoelectric
scanning angle by optical amplification. Lee et al. [7] utilize a ceramics for a simple fabrication process (see Fig.1 (a) and (b)).
pre-compensating positive lens and a subsequent negative lens The fabrication for the scanner is the same as reported in [11].
and Milanovic et al. use a fisheye lens[8]. These optics occupy MEMS scanner’s size is optimized to achieve larger scan angle
too much space compared to MEMS scanner’s small size. A at the same driving voltage. Rotation angle of two-axis is
circle scanning biaxial MEMS mirror resonator with an measured by piezoresistive angle sensor. The optical scanning
omnidirectional lens is proposed to achieve a large FOV of angle is able to reach 41.6° and 42.6° in each axis at 23.3Vac,
MEMS scanner[9]. This optical structure is special for this circle while the maximum 3rd principle stress reach near 1Gpa and the
beam cracks at once or after a few period. By optically
The project supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China
(No. 51105228).

978-1-4799-8287-5/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

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 expanding scan angle of the MEMS scanner, the device can where ‫ܣ‬ᇱ௄ and ‫ܤ‬௄ᇱ are intersection when mirror rotates at angle
operate in a low stress and work longer life. of –ș, ‫ܤ‬௄ᇱᇱ is intersection when at angle of ș, D is diameter of
laser beam and OA1 is length of incident position relative to
intersection of wedge glass and MEMS scanning mirror.
Backing-mirror on wedge can be fabricated by Metal Sputter.
Roof structure is used to decrease angle between emergent light
and glass package to maintain higher output transmittance. To
achieve larger angle amplification, longer mirror plate is need
and it will reduce resonant frequency (according to (4)). In view
of this, 2nd order beam is employed in our design. Final package
of MEMS scanner is showed in Fig.3. Our method just change
(a) (b) the origin package with only 1mm in height compared with
Fig. 1. (a) Schematic diagram of MEMS scanner (b) photograph of MEMS centimeter scale of other work.
scanner under optical microscope

Optical angle amplification consists of wedge-like structure

(see Fig.2 (a)). The wedge is made of glass with a gold reflector
(called backing-mirror ) on the glass. The transmittance of laser
beam is high in wavelength we use. Principle of the angle
amplification is shown in Fig.2 (b). Incident laser ray is first
reflected by MEMS mirror and changed direction to the
backing-mirror (this beam is called first-order reflection beam). Fig. 3. Front view of MEMS scanning mirror with wedge-like multiplied
After first reflection by backing-mirror, Laser beam turn back to angle amplification
MEMS mirror. Beam secondly reflected by mirror is called
second-order reflection beam. III. EXPERIMENT AND RESULT
Experimental setup is showed in Fig.4. Laser beam created
by Laser module is scanned by MEMS scanner and a laser line
is generated on screen. Scan angle can be calculated using length
of laser line and distance between MEMS scanner and the screen.

(a) (b)
Fig. 2. (a) Schematic of MEMS scanner with wedge-like multiplied angle
amplification (b)principle of wedge-like angle amplification
(a) (b)
With the wedge amplification, we can use the 2nd-order
Fig. 4. (a) A diagram of experimental setup (b) experimental setup
beam rather than 1st-order as scan beam. The 2nd-order beam
can be reflected more times for a higher scanning order. Optical To validate wedge-like structure’s function of magnifying
scan angle of different order beam is: scanning angle, output window is replaced by an acrylic window
with semitransparent membrane on it. In our design, wedge
ȕk = 2kș (1) angle is 10 degrees and length of mirror plate is 5 millimeters.
Three different order beam is observed in our experiment(see
where ș is mechanical angle of MEMS scanner and k is the Fig.5 (a) and (b)). The first order pattern is 50millimeters long
number of order. and the second is 100 millimeters (twice longer than first).
To separate kth order beam with smaller order beam in the
far field, the angle of wedge must meet Eq.2:

Įk − Įk-1 = 2γ > (2k-1)ș (2)

where Ȗ is wedge angle between MEMS mirror and wedge glass.

(a) (b)
Length of mirror L1 and length of backing-mirror L2 must Fig. 5. (a) X-axis scanning and (b) Y-axis scanning line fo MEMS scanner
satisfy (3) and (4): with a semitransparent membrane

‫ܮ‬ଵ ൐ ‫ܣ‬ଵ ‫ܣ‬ᇱ௄ ൅ ‫ ܦ‬ൌ ሼ

ୡ୭ୱ ఈభ
െ ͳሽܱ‫ܣ‬ଵ ൅ ‫( ܦ‬3) MEMS scanner with and without amplification structure
ୡ୭ୱሾఈభ ାଶሺ௞ିଵሻሺఊାఏሻሿ have been experimented. Relationship curves of optical scan
angle versus driving voltage is measured(see Fig.6). Phase-
ୡ୭ୱ ఈభ ୡ୭ୱ ఈభ locked loops is used to ensure MEMS mirror scanning at
‫ܮ‬ଶ ൐ ‫ܤ‬ଵᇱᇱ ‫ܤ‬௄ᇱ ൌ ሼ െ ሽܱ‫ܣ‬ଵ (4) resonant frequency. Using scanner without amplification, to
ୡ୭ୱሾఈభ ାሺଶ௞ିଵሻሺఊାఏሻሿ ୡ୭ୱሺఈభ ାఊିఏሻ

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 achieve FOV of 20°×20° need driving voltage of 11Volts FOV but the scanner must work in liquid which results in rather
(6.3Vac at frequency of 710Hz and 4.7Vac at frequency of low working frequency (2Hz).
997Hz). Once with wedge-like amplification, MEMS scanner
can achieve scan FOV of 40°×40° driven at the same voltage. TABLE I. COMPARISION OF DIFFERENT MEMS SCANNERWITH
Twice more scan angle is realized than before. AMPLIFICATION

Package Size (mm)

Gain of
Device FOV (degrees) With gain
FOV Origin
amplification
Lee[7] 42.2× 42.2 2.64 31.8x14.7x9.2 25.4x41.8x72 17.78

Hofmann[9] 250(1-axis) 4.17 10x10x3 ࢥ50x25 163.62

Zhang[10] 150(1-axis) 3.49 8.8x6.4x6.8 1in3 42.79

Our work 45.3x42.6 2 20x20x15 20x20x16 1.07

IV. CONCLUSION
In summary, we present a ultra-compact multiplied angle
amplification for increasing scanning angle of MEMS scanner.
The main challenge we have overcome is to enable scan angle
enlarging without much increase in package. This allows for
Fig. 6. Optical scanning angle of MEMS scanner with and without multiplied miniature LIDAR application with high scan angle, low voltage,
angle amplification
long-lifetime MEMS scanner. A 2D MEMS scanner with rather
Piezoresistive sensor is integrated to measure scan angle. low driving voltage is realized. Future work will focus on
Each angle (1°, 2°, … ,10°) is measured 10 times (see Fig.7). wedge-like structure manufactured in MEMS process.
The 3ı error (thrice standard error) of angle is 0.1° (x-axis) and ACKNOWLEDGMENT
0.87° (y-axis).
The authors wish to acknowledge and thank Yongfeng Gao
for some useful technical discussions.
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