A Laser-Machined Stainless-Steel Micro-Scanner for Confocal Microscopy

A stainless-steel based micro-scanner with magnetic actuation is fabricated via laser-cutting technology targeted for confocal microscopy. Laser cutting offers low-cost and high speed fabrication of such scanners. The device is designed to establish a 2D Lissajous pattern. For a coil drive of 180 mA, fabricated scanner is able to deliver 4 degrees of optical scan angle for both slow scan and fast scan axes at 663 Hz and 2211 Hz, respectively. Fabricated mirror is integrated into a confocal microscopy setup and tested with the United States Air Force target accomplishing a 200 μm × 200 μm field of view and sub 10 μm resolution. With further improvement, our scanner will contribute to manufacturing of low-cost and compact scanning microscopy technologies