Single-Pixel MEMS Spectrometer Based on Compressive Sensing

This letter demonstrates a miniature spectrometer suitable for transmission spectroscopy. A MEMS oscillating mask is designed to encode the light distribution dispersed along a slit. A single-pixel photodetector is employed to collect the encoded light, and thus the proposed principle is workable for any wavelength range. Compressive sensing theory is used to design the encoding patterns implemented on the MEMS encoder to release the requirement for long travel range of MEMS actuators and to improve the spectral resolution. The experimental results prove that the proposed spectrometer works efficiently to recover typical transmission spectra with a real spectral resolution of 2 nm from 446 nm to 652 nm. This resolution can be furtherly enhanced, and this technology can be used to establish portable spectrometers for chemical sensing applications.