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AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsKenji Tamamori, Hiroyuki Ozaki
Estimating the term…
Provided is an actuator formed in a substrate including a handle layer, an elastic body layer, and an insulating layer, the actuator including a movable portion supported to a support portion by an elastic body, a movable comb electrode formed on the movable portion, a fixed comb electrode supported by the support portion, and electrode wirings connected to the respective comb electrodes in which the elastic body supports the movable portion such that the movable portion is displaceable in a direction perpendicular to the substrate in accordance with voltages applied to the comb electrodes; the comb electrodes are made up of the handle layer, and the elastic body is made up of the elastic body layer; and a handle layer separation groove is provided to electrically separate between the handle layers of the support portions supporting the comb electrodes, and a structure reinforcing portion is formed across the separation groove.
An actuator, which is formed in a substrate including a handle layer, an elastic body layer, and an insulating layer sandwiched between the handle layer and the elastic body layer, the actuator comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
The reflecting element being a micromechanical device, e.g. a MEMS mirror, DMD: the reflecting element being moved or deformed by electrostatic means
Objective types, i.e. instruments for examining the eyes independent of the patients' perceptions or reactions: for confocal scanning
Objective types, i.e. instruments for examining the eyes independent of the patients' perceptions or reactions: for looking at the eye fundus,…
For looking at the eye fundus, e.g. ophthalmoscopes: using coherent radiation
About 7 years of term left · ends 23 Oct 2033 (estimated)
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrostatic comb actuator in a MEMS field or the like, and more particularly, to an electrostatic comb actuator that is applicable to, for example, a deformable mirror. Moreover, the present invention relates to an adaptive optics system using the deformable mirror, and a scanning laser ophthalmoscope using the adaptive optics system.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a sectional view illustrating an electrostatic comb actuator according to Example 1 of the present invention.
FIGS. 2A and 2B are plan views illustrating the electrostatic comb actuator according to Example 1 of the present invention.
FIGS. 3A, 3B, 3C, and 3D are sectional views illustrating a method of driving the electrostatic comb actuator according to the present invention.
The present invention has the following features. Movable and fixed comb electrodes are made up of a handle layer of a substrate. An elastic body for supporting a movable portion with respect to a support portion is made up of an elastic body layer of the substrate. A structure reinforcing portion is formed across a handle layer separation groove for separating between the handle layers of the support portions for supporting the movable and fixed comb electrodes. With this, the movable comb electrode and the fixed comb electrode can be made up of the thick handle layer of the substrate, and the elastic body can be made up of the thin elastic body layer of the substrate. Thus, the displacement amount of the movable portion in a direction perpendicular to the substrate can be increased. Further, at the connection portion in the handle layer separation groove, the structure reinforcing portion is formed as described above, and thus the strength of the connection portion can be increased.
The structure reinforcing portion is an insulating material portion that is filled in the separation groove, or an insulating material layer formed in contact with the elastic body layer on the opposite side to the handle layer in a region including a part corresponding to the separation groove. However, any structure reinforcing portion may be formed as long as the structure reinforcing portion can reinforce reduction in strength of the handle layer due to the separation groove while maintaining the electric separation. If permitted in design considering the application of the electrostatic comb actuator, for example, the structure reinforcing portion may be an insulating material layer formed across the separation groove and in contact with the handle layer in the region including the part corresponding to the separation groove.
Configurations and actions and effects of the present invention are described by way of embodiments of the present invention.