Patent ID: 8736843

Claim:
An optical Micro Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) device providing an optical path retardation multiplier, comprising: a substrate; an array of corner cube reflectors, a corner cube reflector of the array of corner cube reflectors including a first edge, a second edge and a third edge, the substrate acting as the third edge, the first and second edges being separated from the substrate by an air gap to enable movement of the first and second edges while the third edge remain stationary, the corner cube reflector being optically coupled to receive an incident beam on the first edge and operable to reflect the incident beam from the second edge; an array of fixed mirrors formed on the substrate, a fixed mirror of the array of fixed mirrors being optically coupled to receive the incident beam reflected from the corner cube reflector and operable to reflect the incident beam back towards the corner cube reflector as a reflected beam along a reverse path of the incident beam; and a MEMS actuator formed on the substrate and coupled to the array of corner cube reflectors to cause a displacement of the first and second edges of the corner cube reflector perpendicular to a plane of the fixed mirror to extend an optical path length of the reflected beam; wherein the array of fixed mirrors is offset from the array of corner cube reflectors such that the reflected beam is parallel to the incident beam.