Abstract
Micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) with integrated piezoelectric thin films (piezoMEMS) have displayed particular versatility in terms of new possible application areas. However, the prototyping costs and needed competence for industries that would like to exploit this new technology can be both unaffordable and hard to establish. The SINTEF moveMEMS process is an open standardized process for fabrication of piezoMEMS. The availability of high-performance PZT (Pb(Zr,Ti)O3) thin-films ready for integration in MEMS processes opens up these new application areas for industry. Effective long stroke actuation of MEMS structures has been an issue for many years. Indeed, in many optical applications long-stroke/large angle actuation is essential, such as mirrors for FTIR or Fabry-Perot interferometers. PiezoMEMS technology delivers long-stroke actuation at low voltages combined with low power consumption. Stroke lengths of several tens of µm have been demonstrated for piezoelectric MEMS cantilevers at voltages < 20 V. An additional advantage is that piezoelectric films generate large forces, thus the actuators can be made stiffer and more robust than what is possible with commonly used electrostatic and bimorph actuators. Here, we present a novel piezoMEMS micromirror which is vertically deflected by using a double ring push-pull actuator as a part of a Fabry-Perot interferometer for infrared gas spectroscopy.