Research On Beam Steering With Microlens Arrays

Micromation and intelligence are the main direction of industry and technology nowadays. Micro-optics is about optical device and microstructure on the order of micron. Microlens arrays beam steering is a new scanning manner and a hot research topic. Because of the advantages of high frequency, easy fabrication process, finesse etc, microlens arrays are applied extensively in the fields of laser scan, sub-pixel microscan and field-of-view-multiplexing.It's very important to research on optical design and fabrication process of the microlens arrays, which affects the performance of the microlens arrays beam steering directly. Principle model, theory analysis and experimental process of microlens arrays are fully explored and discussed in this paper.First of all, the principle of microlens arrays steering is analyzed. Three traditional simulation modes are listed, including macroscopical lens mode, convex- convex microlens arrays mode, and convex- concave microlens arrays mode. The advantage and disadvantage of them are discussed respectively. Then, the piezoelectric actuators is proposed.Secondly, the optical designing software ZEMAX is adopted to analyze the steering angle and spot dimension. Two different refractive indexes are selected to analyze steering angle. Simulations are carried out with the parameters of different lens dimension and different curvature radius. It can be deduced how the factors affect the steering angle.Parallel light and divergent light are chosen for getting spots dimension. Besides, simulations are done also with different surface types, deducing how the factors affect the spot dimension.After that, the fabrication experiment of microlens arrays is finished. The experimental data and result are presented. The test of microlens arrays is proposed.Finally, application of the microlens arrays beam steering is set up. Laser scan, sub-pixel microscan and field-of-view-multiplexing are analyzed respectively. The principle, light path, and parameters of field-of-view-multiplexing are illuminated in particular.