A 2D optomechanical focused laser spot scanner: analysis and experimental results for microstereolithography

This paper proposes and analyzes a 2D optomechanical-focused laser spot scanning system (patent pending) which allows uniform intensity focused spot scanning with high speed and high resolution over a large range of scan. Such scanning is useful where variation of focused spot characteristics affects the performance of applications such as micro-/nanostereolithography, laser micro-machining, scanning optical tweezers, optical scanning microscopy, and so on. Proposed scanning is achieved by using linear movement of mirrors and lens maintaining the alignment of motion and optical axis of laser. Higher speed and high resolution at the same time are achieved by use of two serial double parallelogram flexural mechanisms with mechatronics developed around them. Optical analysis is carried out to demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed system numerically and is further supported by the experimental results. Additional analysis is carried out to demonstrate robustness of the scanner in the case of small misalignment errors incurred in actual practice. Although the proposed scanner is useful in general in several applications mentioned above, discussion in this paper is focused on microstereolithography