Journal articles and book contributions

We present the design, fabrication and characterization of a compact 2D stepping microdrive for pinhole array positioning. The miniaturized solution enables a highly integrated compact hyperspectral imaging system. Based on the geometry of the pinhole array, an inch-worm drive with electrostatic actuators was designed resulting in a compact (1 cm2) positioning system featuring a step size of about 15 [my]m in a 170 [my]m displacement range. The high payload (20 mg) as required for the pinhole array and the compact system design exceed the known electrostatic inch-worm-based microdrives.

A compact linear micromechanical stepping drive for positioning a 7 × 5.5 mm^2 optical pinhole array is presented. The system features a step size of 13.2 [my]m and a full displacement range of 200 [my]m. The electrostatic inch-worm stepping mechanism shows a compact design capable of positioning a payload 50% of its own weight. The stepping drive movement, step sizes and position accuracy are characterized. The actuated pinhole array is integrated in a confocal chromatic hyperspectral imaging system, where coverage of the object plane, and therefore the useful picture data, can be multiplied by 14 in contrast to a non-actuated array.