Carbon fiber rods supporting this tiny mirror can be made to bend up to 90 degrees millions of times without showing fatigue. The technology could be used to create a video projector on a chip.

Desai has built an optical scanner consisting of a tiny rectangular mirror measuring 400 by 500 microns, supported by two carbon-fiber hinges about 55 microns across. Made to oscillate at 2.5 kHz, the tiny mirror caused a laser beam to scan across a range of up to 180 degrees, corresponding to a 90-degree bend by the carbon fibers.

An oscillating mirror could be used to scan a laser beam across a screen, and an array of mirrors, one for each horizontal line, could produce an image in the same way that a moving electron beam creates an image on a television screen.

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Carbon fiber rods supporting this tiny mirror can be made to bend up to 90 degrees millions of times without showing fatigue. The technology could be used to create a video projector on a chip.

Desai has built an optical scanner consisting of a tiny rectangular mirror measuring 400 by 500 microns, supported by two carbon-fiber hinges about 55 microns across. Made to oscillate at 2.5 kHz, the tiny mirror caused a laser beam to scan across a range of up to 180 degrees, corresponding to a 90-degree bend by the carbon fibers.

An oscillating mirror could be used to scan a laser beam across a screen, and an array of mirrors, one for each horizontal line, could produce an image in the same way that a moving electron beam creates an image on a television screen.

">
Carbon fiber rods supporting this tiny mirror can be made to bend up to 90 degrees millions of times without showing fatigue. The technology could be used to create a video projector on a chip.

Desai has built an optical scanner consisting of a tiny rectangular mirror measuring 400 by 500 microns, supported by two carbon-fiber hinges about 55 microns across. Made to oscillate at 2.5 kHz, the tiny mirror caused a laser beam to scan across a range of up to 180 degrees, corresponding to a 90-degree bend by the carbon fibers.

An oscillating mirror could be used to scan a laser beam across a screen, and an array of mirrors, one for each horizontal line, could produce an image in the same way that a moving electron beam creates an image on a television screen.

">
Carbon fiber rods supporting this tiny mirror can be made to bend up to 90 degrees millions of times without showing fatigue. The technology could be used to create a video projector on a chip.

Desai has built an optical scanner consisting of a tiny rectangular mirror measuring 400 by 500 microns, supported by two carbon-fiber hinges about 55 microns across. Made to oscillate at 2.5 kHz, the tiny mirror caused a laser beam to scan across a range of up to 180 degrees, corresponding to a 90-degree bend by the carbon fibers.

An oscillating mirror could be used to scan a laser beam across a screen, and an array of mirrors, one for each horizontal line, could produce an image in the same way that a moving electron beam creates an image on a television screen.

">
Carbon fiber rods supporting this tiny mirror can be made to bend up to 90 degrees millions of times without showing fatigue. The technology could be used to create a video projector on a chip.

Desai has built an optical scanner consisting of a tiny rectangular mirror measuring 400 by 500 microns, supported by two carbon-fiber hinges about 55 microns across. Made to oscillate at 2.5 kHz, the tiny mirror caused a laser beam to scan across a range of up to 180 degrees, corresponding to a 90-degree bend by the carbon fibers.

An oscillating mirror could be used to scan a laser beam across a screen, and an array of mirrors, one for each horizontal line, could produce an image in the same way that a moving electron beam creates an image on a television screen.

">
Carbon fiber rods supporting this tiny mirror can be made to bend up to 90 degrees millions of times without showing fatigue. The technology could be used to create a video projector on a chip.

Desai has built an optical scanner consisting of a tiny rectangular mirror measuring 400 by 500 microns, supported by two carbon-fiber hinges about 55 microns across. Made to oscillate at 2.5 kHz, the tiny mirror caused a laser beam to scan across a range of up to 180 degrees, corresponding to a 90-degree bend by the carbon fibers.

An oscillating mirror could be used to scan a laser beam across a screen, and an array of mirrors, one for each horizontal line, could produce an image in the same way that a moving electron beam creates an image on a television screen.

">

Carbon Fibers Make Tiny, Cheap Video Displays

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hahyaan Desai, a Cornell graduate student has created a practical MEMS video display device based on carbon fibers.


Carbon fiber rods supporting this tiny mirror can be made to bend up to 90 degrees millions of times without showing fatigue. The technology could be used to create a video projector on a chip.

Desai has built an optical scanner consisting of a tiny rectangular mirror measuring 400 by 500 microns, supported by two carbon-fiber hinges about 55 microns across. Made to oscillate at 2.5 kHz, the tiny mirror caused a laser beam to scan across a range of up to 180 degrees, corresponding to a 90-degree bend by the carbon fibers.

An oscillating mirror could be used to scan a laser beam across a screen, and an array of mirrors, one for each horizontal line, could produce an image in the same way that a moving electron beam creates an image on a television screen.

“It would be an incredibly cheap display,” Desai said. And the entire device would be small enough to build into a cell phone to project an image on a wall.

Besides serving as oscillators, the researchers said, carbon fibers could be made into clock springs that either unwind slowly to power a micromachine over a period of time or unwind rapidly to provide a sudden burst of power, or used as micro-sized pendulums that could harvest energy from motion like a mechanical self-winding watch to make cell phones, PDAs and even watches that are powered by the user’s movement.