Abstract
With the advent of ultrafast lasers, new manufacturing techniques have come into existence. In micromachining, the use of femtosecond lasers not only offers the possibility for three-dimensional monolithic fabrication inside a single optically transparent material, but also a means for remotely, and arbitrarily, deforming substrates with nanometer resolution. Exploiting this principle and combining it with flexure design, we demonstrate a monolithic micro-mirror entirely made with a femtosecond laser and whose orientation is tuned in a non-contact manner by exposing some part of the device to low energy femtosecond pulses. Given the non-contact nature of the process, the alignment can be very precisely controlled with a resolution that is many orders of magnitude better than conventional techniques based on mechanical positioners.
Highlights
Most optical devices are sensitive to precise alignment between their various elements
We show that in-volume modifications resulting from femtosecond laser exposure, combined with monolithic flexures in a single fused silica substrate, can lead to unprecedented levels of angular positioning accuracy, and this, in a permanent manner
Building up on our previous work [31], here we demonstrate a gimbal mirror with its own flexure positioning element, entirely made of fused silica, and whose orientation is locally adjusted by a laser and in both directions
Summary
Most optical devices are sensitive to precise alignment between their various elements. Various ideas have been proposed to solve these issues, including post-assembly corrective actions and pre-compensating whenever possible during assembly [2,3] Among these methods, localized laser thermal melting offers a non-contact alignment approach [4,5], but suffers from intrinsic limitations, such as the presence of heat affected zones and design-limitations, as it relies on a linear absorption process and, can only be applied to the surface of materials. To cope with these issues, laser-shock adjustment with short pulses has been proposed [6,7,8]. Building up on our previous work [31], here we demonstrate a gimbal mirror with its own flexure positioning element, entirely made of fused silica, and whose orientation is locally adjusted by a laser and in both directions
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