A novel asymmetric optothermal microactuator was developed.A microactuator of 750μm length wasmachined by an excimer laser micromachining system using single layer material.It had an asymmetricstructure consisting of two thin expansion arms with different widths.A laser diode(660nm)was em-ployed as the external power source to activate the microactuator.We introduced a charge coupled device(CCD)-combined optical microscope and a computer system to observe and capture the microactuator’ sdeflection and vibration.Experiments have been carried out to check the feasibility of deflection,and thedata of deflection have been measured under different laser power as well as under different pulse frequen-cy.The results show that the actuator can practically generate an obvious lateral deflection or vibration,the maximum could be larger than 20μm.Moreover,the deflection status of the microactuator could becontrolled wirelessly or remotely by changing the laser power and its pulse frequency. A novel asymmetric optothermal microactuator was developed. A microactuator of 750 μm length was machined by an excimer laser micromachining system using single layer material. It had an asymmetry structure consisting of two thin expansion arms with different widths. A laser diode (660 nm) was em-ployed as the external power source to activate the microactuator. We introduced a charge coupled device (CCD) -combined optical microscope and a computer system to observe and capture the microactuator ’sdeflection and vibration. Experiments have been carried out to check the feasibility of deflection, and thedata of deflection have been measured under different laser power as well as under different pulse frequen-cy. The results show that the actuator can practically generate an obvious lateral deflection or vibration, the maximum could be larger than 20 μm. Moreover, the deflection status of the microactuator could becontrolled wirelessly or remotely by changing the laser power and its pulse frequency.