Electrostatic comb drives are widely used in microelectromechanical devices. These comb drives often employ rectangular fingers which produce a stable, constant force output as they engage. This paper explores the use of shapes other than the common rectangular fingers. Such shaped comb fingers allow customized force-displacement response for a variety of applications. In order to simplify analysis and design of shaped fingers, a simple model is developed to predict the force generated by shaped comb fingers. This model is tested using numerical simulation on several different sample shaped comb designs. Finally, the model is further tested, and the use of shaped comb fingers is demonstrated, through the design, fabrication, and testing of tunable resonators which allow both up and down shifts of the resonant frequency. The simulation and testing results demonstrate the usefulness and accuracy of the simple model. Finally, other applications for shaped comb fingers are described, including tunable sensors, low-voltage actuators, multistable actuators, or actuators with linear voltagedisplacement behavior. [879] Index Terms-Tunable resonators, variable gap electrodes. I. INTRODUCTION T HE COMB-DRIVE actuator is one of the main building blocks of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Its working principle is based on an electrostatic force that is generated between biased interdigitated conductive combs. Because of its capability of force generation or varying capacitance, it finds wide application in micro-mechanical systems. Sample applications include polysilicon microgrippers [1], scanning probe devices [2], force-balanced accelerometers [3], actuation mechanisms for rotating devices [4], laterally oscillating gyroscopes [5], and radio frequency (RF) filters [6]. Consequently, any improvement to this basic actuator could have far-reaching effects.
The comb-drive actuator is one of the main building blocks of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Its working principle is based on an electrostatic force that is generated between biased conductor plates as one moves relative to the other. Because of its capability of force generation, it finds wide application in micro-mechanical systems. Sample applications include polysilicon microgrippers [1], scanning probe devices [2], force-balanced accelerometers [3], actuation mechanisms for rotating devices [4], laterally oscillating gyroscopes [5], and RF filters [6]. Consequently, any improvement to this basic actuator could have far-reaching effects.
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