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Preface

The recent remarkable development of microsystems dates back to 1983 when
Richard P. Feynman of California University delivered a speech to a large
audience of scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He pre-
sented the concept of sacrificed etchingto fabricate a silicon micromotor, and
pointed out the need for a friction-less, contact sticking-free structure, due to
the relative increase of the surface effect in such microsystems and devices. A
micromotor fabricated by Fan et al. in 1988 caused a tremendous sensation
and opened the way for Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) technol-
ogy. The diameter of the rotor was 120 µm, its rotational speed was 500 rpm,
and the gap between the rotor and the stator was 2 µm. Today, many success-
ful examples of MEMS products can be found: MEMS such as accelerometers,
pressure sensors, microphones and gyros are used commercially, and various
branches of industry are already includingMEMS components in their new
products.
Furthermore, optical MEMS, or micromechanical photonics, are evolv-
ingin interdisciplinary research and engineeringfields to merge indepen-
dently developed technologies based on optics, mechanics, electronics and
physical/chemical sciences. Manufacturingtechnologies such as semiconductor
lasers, surface-micromachiningand bulk-micromachiningare promotingthis
fusion of technologies. In addition, new devices such as optical MEMS includ-
ingoptical sensors, optical switches, optical scanners, optical heads, near-field
probes, optical rotors and mixers, actuators, and microsystems for diagno-
sis and treatments, and new conceptual frameworks such as micromechanical
photonics includingan optical encoder, a tunable laser diode with a micro-
cantilever and Nano-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (NEMS) are appearing.
Rapidly emerging interdisciplinary science and technology are expected
to provide new capabilities in sensing, actuation, and control. Advances such
as MEMS, optical MEMS, micromechanical photonics and microfluidics have
led not only to a reduction in size but also be the merging of computation,
communication and power with sensing, actuation and control to provide new
functions. By integrating smart optoelectronics and antennas for remote con-
trol with a microstructure, the ability of microsystems to interpret and control