Miniaturized spectrometers were demonstrated by mounting micromachined diffraction gratings onto CCD imaging devices. Two implementations were tested: one for a high dispersion and sensitivity application, and the other for a low-cost consumer application. The first system showed a dispersion of 1.7nm/pixel and a resolution of 74.4 nm/nm for the bandwidth of interest. The free spectral range of the device was designed to be 400-800 nm for this particular application. The diffraction efficiency of the system is 63%. The second, low-cost system demonstrated a dispersion and resolution of 2.55 nm/pixel and 69.8 nm/nm respectively. Results are shown for their applications in biochemical analysis. In addition, further optimization was sought by adding micromachined lenses and creating specialized gratings to compress and shape the spectral signal.

Yee, G. M., Maluf, N. I., Hing, P. A., Albin, M. I., and Kovacs, G. T. A., "Miniature Spectrometers for Biochemical Analysis," Sensors and Actuators A, vol. 58, no. 1, Jan. 1997, pp. 61 - 66.