Development of Micormirror Laser Scanning Mechanism for Laser Marking/Engraving/Etching System

激光打标/雕刻/蚀刻（该术语在下文中由“激光打标”表示）使用激光束穿过材料的表面以改变材料的性质（例如，颜色），或通过蒸发/熔化将材料去除到一定深度，例如以形成所需的图案。它已被广泛应用于制造业和消费品行业。激光标记系统由激光源（例如，CO2激光器、光纤激光器、Nd：YAG或Nd：YVO激光器）、激光光束矢量扫描机构和控制软件。激光束扫描机构传统上由两个检流计反射镜或两个伺服/步进电机驱动的反射镜组成。它还包括其他组件，如编码器，驱动卡，散热器和电源供应器。总体积为3 ~ 4升。成本约为2500美元，约占激光打标总成本的50%。是一家GTA公司（位于里士满山），专门制造激光加工机和提供激光打标服务。在该公司进入这个市场几年后，他们意识到激光打标机中的传统激光扫描机制过于笨重和昂贵。该公司一直在寻找一种替代解决方案，其成本更低，尺寸更小的传统激光打标机的激光扫描机制。本申请提出了解决上述问题的解决方案，即，利用微镜对激光束进行矢量扫描，取代激光打标机中传统的激光扫描机构。由于微镜的质量很小，不需要任何驱动电路，只需很小的功率就可以驱动，因此微镜的结构和驱动电路比传统的振镜或伺服/步进电机驱动的微镜要小得多/简单得多。激光束扫描机构的体积约为0.05升或更小，比传统设计小约50倍。此外，微镜适合于批量制造，即，同时在一个晶片上制造数百或数千个，这导致非常低的单位反射镜价格，例如，10美元。包括前置放大器和驱动/控制电路的成本是

Laser marking/engraving/etching (the term is represented by "laser marking" thereafter) uses a laser beamacross the surface of a material to alter the property (e.g., color), or remove the materials to a certain depththrough vaporization/melting, such as to form desired patterns. It has been widely used in fabrication andconsumer product industries. A laser marking system consists of the laser source (e.g., CO2 laser, fiber laser,Nd:YAG or Nd:YVO laser), the laser beam vector scanning mechanism and controlling software. The laserbeam scanning mechanism is traditionally comprised of two galvanometer mirrors or two servo/stepper motordriven mirrors. It also includes other components such as encoders, driving cards, heatsinks and a powersupplier. The total size is 3 ~ 4 liters. The cost is about USD 2500, which is ~ 50% of the total laser marking.Lumicision Inc. is a GTA company (located in Richmond Hill) and specializes in manufacturing lasermachining machines and providing laser marking service. After the company entered this market for a fewyears, they realized the traditional laser scanning mechanism in their laser marking machines is too bulky andtoo expensive. The company has been long looking for an alternative solution of much lower cost and smallersize to the traditional laser scanning mechanism in their laser marking machines.This application proposes a solution to address the above problem, i.e., using micromirrors to vector scan thelaser beam to replace the traditional laser scanning mechanism in the laser marking machine. The micromirrorhas much smaller/simpler structure and driving circuit than traditional galvanometer or servo/stepper motorsdriven mirrors because the micromirror's mass is very small, which requires every little power to drive withoutneeding any heatsink. The micromirror based laser beam scanning mechanism is about 0.05 liter or less, whichis ~ 50 times smaller than that of the traditional design. In addition, micromirrors are suitable for massfabrication, i.e., hundreds or thousands are fabricated on one wafer at the same time, which leads to very lowunit mirror price, e.g., 10s dollars. The cost including the micromirror and the driving/control circuit is one