Fabrication of polygon mirror microscanner by surface micromachining

This paper describes the fabrication process and preliminary experimental results of a polygon mirror microscanner. The fabrication process is established by the integration of polysilicon surface micromachining and electroless plating of nickel. The scanner structures studied are similar to conventional mechanical polygon mirror scanners but utilize micromotors with diameters up to one millimeter. The micromotors are fabricated by polysilicon surface micromachining. The optical elements are hexagonal nickel reflectors up to 20 micrometers tall fabricated by selective electroless plating of nickel on the rotor of the micromotor. Successful fabrication of the micromotors with nickel reflectors on the motor has been demonstrated. Optical measurements have been performed at visible wavelength (633 nm) using multi-mode optical fibers for the source illumination positioned roughly in the plane of the substrate. The scanned, reflected radiation was detected via scattering from the substrate and by a television camera in the plane of the substrate.