A novel into-plane rotating rnicromirror actuated by a hybrid electrostatic driving structure is presented. The hybrid driving structure is made up of a planar plate drive and a vertical comb drive. The device is fabricated in SOI substrate by using a bulk-and-surface mixed silicon micromachining process. As demonstrated by experiment, the novel driving structure can actuate the mirror to achieve large-range continuous rotation as well as spontaneous 90°rotation induced by the pull-in effect. The continuous rotating range of the micromirror is increased to about 46° at an increased yielding voltage. The measured yielding voltages of the mirrors with torsional springs of 1 and 0.5μm in thickness are 390 - 410V and 140 - 160V, respectively. The optical insertion loss has also been measured to be --1.98dB when the mirror serves as an optical switch.
