Random access addressing of MEMS electrostatic shutter array for multi-object astronomical spectroscopy

Abstract

An extended version of cross-bar type addressing technique is developed for three-port electrostatic micro shutters arranged in an arrayed format. A microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) shutter blade suspended by a pair of torsion beams works as a movable electrode that is either attracted upwards to the cover plate to close the aperture or retracted downwards into the through-hole to open it. Tri-state positioning of the shutter-i.e., open, rest, and close-is controlled by the hysteresis loop of the electrostatic pull-in and release behavior using the combination of the voltages applied to the shutter, the cover, and the substrate. Random access addressing of the shutters is demonstrated by a control system composed of MATLAB-coded Arduino electronics. The shutter array developed in this work is for a sub-cluster of a reconfigurable shutter array under development for a multi-object galactic astronomy.