In the Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, vol. 11, pp. 574-583, Oct. 2002, we presented an actuation scheme for toggling a bistable MEMS, a buckled beam, from one stable state to the other using radiation pressure of light. The experiments revealed some anomalous behavior of the beam. While long duration laser pulses at a power level slightly above the toggle threshold reliably toggled the beam every time, short duration pulses of the same power toggled the beam only about two-thirds of the time. In addition, when excessively high power levels (far above the toggle threshold) were used, the beam would not reliably toggle regardless of the pulse duration. This paper resolves the anomaly. It presents a nonlinear dynamical analysis of the bistable beam device which explains the anomaly as follows: a slightly higher than threshold force, applied for sufficient time, toggles the beam. If the force duration is longer than the time of decay of the oscillation of the beam about the toggled state, then the beam remains in that state after the force is removed. Otherwise, the beam may return to the original state. On the other hand, if the beam is toggled by a force far above the threshold, then after removal of the force, the beam may oscillate spanning both the states until the motion decays and the beam settles down to one of the states, not necessarily the toggled state, which may appear to be an anomalous behavior. The theoretical model is validated by a series of toggling experiments. [1035]
In (Sulfridge, et al., 2001) we presented an actuation scheme for toggling a bistable MEMS from one stable state to the other using the radiation pressure of light. The experiments on radiation pressure revealed some unexpected behavior of the beam when toggled by short duration laser pulses. While long duration laser pulses reliably toggled the beam every time, short duration pulses only seemed to toggle the beam about half of the time. This paper presents a new, nonlinear dynamic analysis of the bistable beam device used in those experiments that explains this anomalous behavior.
This paper presents experimental evidence that MEMS devices may be manipulated using beams of light. Light possesses momentum, and hence it imparts a force equal to 2W/c when perfectly reflected by a surface. Here W is the total power of the reflected light, and c is the speed of light. The radiation pressure of light can be quite significant to MEMS devices. This actuation method is demonstrated, both in air and in vacuum, by switching the state of a bi-stable MEMS device. The associated heat transfer model is also presented.
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