Advanced galvanometer-based optical scanner design

The closed loop galvanometer-based optical scanners continues to be an advanced technology for the integration and enabling of a broader range of laser system applications and uses. Advances in the technology have provided major improvements in galvo positioning speed, accuracy, size and cost. This paper will introduce the benefits, operating ranges and recent advances in galvanometer technology for scanning applications along with some of the other components and issues related to system design for high performance scanning applications. Several different actuator and position detector technologies and designs will be presented including moving coil actuators, moving magnet actuators and patented capacitive and optical position detector designs that offer positioning speeds as fast as 100 s and positioning repeatability to single microradians. The performance and system design trade-offs that one should consider during the selection of the appropriate galvanometer technology and the optical systems design will be discussed along with a performance comparison of the galvanometer to other optical scanning technologies.