MEMS-based optical mini- and microspectrometers for the visible and infrared spectral range

摘要

Miniaturized free-field based optical microspectrometers have huge potential for application in industry, science, medicine, agriculture and biology. State-of-the-art is the micro-assembly of micromachined optical components on a mini-bench and the trend is towards fully integrated optical microsystems. Complete silicon IC compatible MEMS-based opto-electrical microsystems on a single chip may offer huge cost benefits in these potentially high-volume applications. On-chip integration does, however, impose limitations. The required process compatibility and limited choice of acceptable materials does not necessarily give optimum optical performance. Also, the dimensional downscaling is not generally an optical advantage. This overview discusses grating-based and interferometer-based mini- and microspectrometers, shows performances already reported, the trends, the potential, the limitations and approaches to obtain a sufficient optical performance, in terms of spectral resolution and throughput, for serving the majority of applications.