General work of an optical mouse.

Generally an optical mouse uses a tiny camera to send input to a computer.

But the subsequent optical mice use a red light-emitting diode (LED), as the LED bounces from the surface it gets detected by a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS).

The sensor takes the reflecting picture 1,500 times per second approx.

These pictures are received by digital signal processor (DSP) that analyzes picture.

Depending on the pictures that were taken by the mouse sensor, the DSP determines where the mouse cursor should move and sends that response to the Computer.