Miniaturized gizmos could arrive in handhelds, cars, and robots.In the continuing quest to shrink everything, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems (known as IOF) have produced a projector,seen here, that’s the size of a sugar cube. It could soon arrive in cameras, digital video players, and other handheld devices.
Until recently, attempts at miniaturization in projector technology have come up against physical problems: The core of a traditional projector is a micro-mirror array with a million mirrors. Each can be tilted to reflect a light source evenly, producing light or dark pixels that together form the projected image.
Fraunhofer researchers have produced an alternative to the micro-mirror array. “We use just one single mirror,” says Andreas Brauer, director of the Microoptic Systems division at IOF. “This mirror can be tilted around two axes.”
The researchers are also working on shrinking traditional light sources so that small diode lasers can replace them. RGB projection technology relies on red, green, and blue light sources. Red and blue diode lasers are already small enough for the tiniest projectors, but the remaining challenge is to shrink green diode lasers. Several researchers outside Fraunhofer also are working on that remaining goal.
The tiny projection technology likewise has promise in handheld gizmos. As one example, inexpensive miniature laser arrays in cars could act as distance sensors that measure the gap between vehicles when driving or nearby objects when parking.