2007 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
MEMS Shutter Array for Astronomical Infrared Spectrograph of Deep Galaxies
| Project/Area Number |
18340053
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Astronomy
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| Research Institution | The University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
TOSHIYOSHI Hiroshi The University of Tokyo, Institute of Industrial Science, Associate Professor (50282603)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
MOTOHARA Kentaro The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Science, Assistant Professor (90343102)
KOBAYASHI Naoto The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Science, Assistant Professor (50280566)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2006 – 2007
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| Keywords | Micromachine / Electrical Machinery / Astronomy / Cosmoohysics / Theoretical Astronomy |
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| Research Abstract |
Astronomical multi-object spectrographs (MOSs) are becoming a powerful tool for the deep survey of the galaxies. Millions of galaxies can be found in a small fraction of view angle when one looks into the deep space over billions of light years. Knowing the distance to each galaxy by the near-infrared Doppler shift is the first step to understand the process of galaxy formation at the beginning of the universe. However, the number of photons is limited after their having traveled a long distance and it usually takes long time to have a clear wavelength spectrum from one galaxy. For this reason, the MOS system has been employed to make best use of the observatory time by observing several target galaxies at a time. We have developed an electrically driven micro-shutter array for an astronomical telescope with an infrared spectroscopy for multiple celestial objects. The shutter array was made by the SOI silicon micromachining with deep reactive-ion etching. The shutter array consists of 1 x 7 elements of 100 microns by 1000 microns shutter plate supported by a pair of thin silicon beams of only 1 micron wide, 2 microns thick, and 450 microns long. Typical drive voltage to open the shutter from the zero flat position to 90 degrees was 100 V - 200 V, depending on the suspension dimensions. In this paper, we report two types of shutters after improving the operation reliability; the shutters are independently addressed and electrically latched with relatively low hold voltage of 27 V.
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