Design of a hybrid integrated MEMS scanning grating spectrometer

Optical MEMS (micro electro mechanical systems) have been used to reduce size, weight and costs of any kind of optical systems very successfully starting in the last decades. Scientists at Fraunhofer IPMS invented a resonant drive for 1-d and 2-d MEMS scanning mirror devices. Besides mirrors also scanning gratings have been realized. Now, rapidly growing new applications demand for enhanced functions and further miniaturization. This task cannot be solved by simply putting more functionality into the MEMS chip, for example grating and slit structures, but by three dimensional hybrid integration of the complete optical system into a stack of several functional substrates. Here we present the optical system design and realization strategy for a scanning grating spectrometer for the near infrared (NIR) range. First samples will be mounted from single components by a bonder tool (Finetech Fineplacer Femto) but the option of wafer assembly will be kept open for future developments. Extremely miniaturized NIR spectrometer could serve a wide variety of applications for handheld devices from food quality analysis to medical services or materials identification.