Highly Linear and Wide Non-Resonant Two-Degree-of-Freedom Piezoelectric Laser Scanner.

Laser scanners with mechanically driven mirrors have exhibited increasing potential for various applications, such as displays and laser radar. Resonant scanners are the predominantly used scanners; however, non-resonant scanners are required for applications where point-to-point driving is desirable. Because a non-resonant drive cannot amplify the drive angle owing to the resonance phenomenon, high values are difficult to achieve for the main performance metrics of the scanners: mirror area, drive angle, and operating frequency. In this paper, we present a two-axis scanner with a piezoelectric actuator made of a piezoelectric single-crystal Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3-Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 as the actuation force source. The scanner contains a circular mirror with a diameter of 7 mm and achieves an average static mechanical deflection angle amplitude of 20.8° in two axes with a resonant frequency of 559 Hz. It is equipped with a transmission mechanism that can decouple each axis to achieve high linearity; in our study, the nonlinearity error was less than 1°.

Wide Two-Degree-of-Freedom Static Laser Scanner with Miniaturized Transmission Mechanism and Piezoelectric Actuation.

In recent years, laser scanners have attracted significant attention for applications such as laser radars. However, the establishment of a two-degree-of-freedom scanner that can quasi-statically drive a large mirror with a large deflection angle has proven to be challenging. In this paper, we propose a laser scanner design and fabrication method by combining two unimorph piezoelectric actuators composed of piezoelectric single-crystal Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3-Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 and a miniature translation-rotation conversion mechanism with flexible polyimide hinges. The size of the entire scanner was 32 mm × 12 mm × 10 mm. We successfully demonstrated that the scanner could achieve a large quasi-static mechanical deflection angle amplitude of 20.5° in two axes with a 6-mm-square mirror.

Hot lamination and origami assembly fabrication of miniaturized compliant mechanism.

We developed a process for fabricating a miniaturized hinged mechanism for microrobots by customizing our previously reported flapping-wing method to fabricate microscopic wing structures resembling insects. Flexible hinges were realized by removing the titanium layers of the structure, which were previously sandwiched between thin polyimide layers. A three-dimensional structure can also be realized via origami-like assembly owing to the hinge structure, where the hinge is made to work as a crease. Details of our method and a reference design are reported through a demonstration of a translation-to-rotation conversion mechanism for a piezoelectric actuator. • Simple fabrication using a single hot lamination and origami-like assembly. • Method based on FPC manufacturing technologies would be easy to implement in a variety of research. • Transmission mechanism for piezoelectric actuators was demonstrated, verifying that the structures fabricated by this process function appropriately.