Design simulation and optimization of microoptical components

Manufacturing test structures of microsystems and microcomponents is very expensive in terms of time and materials. In conventional design processes, this limits the number of design variants to be considered. For this reason, computer-supported design techniques are becoming more and more important in microsystems technology. The article describes a micro-optical structure as an example demonstrating the factors which disturb the operation of a micro-optical module, and derives a theoretical description of the system under consideration which allows the system parameters to be optimized with respect to the disturbing influences by means of an evolutionary search method.