Damping analysis and measurement for a comb-drive scanning mirror
Abstract
In this paper we present the analytical and experimental investigation of the air damping of micromachined scanning mirrors with out-of-plane comb drive actuation. A simple, compact model for the damping torque is derived by estimating the orders of magnitude of certain damping contributors. Viscous damping in comb finger gaps is estimated to be the dominant contributor. Because the comb fingers disengage as the scan amplitude increases, the damping coefficient is dependent on the amplitude of angular vibrations. Experimental measurements are presented for a variety of comb-finger geometries. The comb finger length, width, and the gap between comb fingers are varied, and the damping behaviour for single-axis scanning is characterised by measuring the decay rate of free oscillations. The damping is characterised by the exponential decay constant d, found by fitting to the decaying oscillation amplitude. The predictions of the analytical model are compared to these experimental damping measurements.
