The typical scanning mirror can be two dimensional Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) electrostatically or electromagnetically driven scanner. The electrostatic comb MEMS scanner 230 offers large deflection angles, high resonant frequencies and relatively high mechanical stiffness for good shock and vibration tolerance. When even higher resonant frequencies, higher scanning angles and higher immunity to shock and vibration are required, two dimensional electromagnetic scanning MEMS mirror 230 is used. Another embodiment uses two uniaxial scanning mirrors instead of one biaxial scanner. The scanning mirrors are typically operated in the resonant mode or quasi-static mode and synchronization of their displacement with the digital content modulating the lasers is required. The active sensing of the deflection angles (not shown in the figure) is included in the system. It can be accomplished by incorporation of the sensors on the hinges of the scanning mirrors. These sensors can be of piezoelectric, piezoresistive, capacitive, optical or other types. Their signal is amplified and used in the feedback loop to synchronize the motion of mirrors with the digital display or video signals.

The light image generated by laser beam scanning of un-patterned phosphor can be viewed directly by the observer 260 or it can be re-imaged by the optical system 250 onto the appropriate optical screen 270. For one color imaging system, the optical system 250 does not require any color light combiners, but for the full color imaging system, the optical system 250 includes also combining optics that are not shown in FIG. 2 for simplicity, but are shown in FIGS. 5 and 6 below.