PASSIVE ALIGNMENT METHOD AND SYSTEM USING ELASTIC AVERAGING IN OPTOELECTRONICS APPLICATIONS

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an inexpensive and highly accurate alignment method and system in optoelectronics applications. SOLUTION: In an optoelectronic assembly 10 in which one or more beam paths 24 are to be aligned with a corresponding number of active optical elements, the cooperation between flexible alignment features 38 and fixed alignment features 36 achieves elastic averaging so as to provide the target accuracy. By averaging dimensional and positional errors over a large number of localized couplings of the flexible and fixed alignment features, elastic averaging provides the same accuracy as the more costly and complex kinematic alignment techniques. COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI