Design and fabrication of the trapezoidal electrostatic comb-drive actuator

Abstract

This paper reports the design, fabrication and characterization process of the trapezoidal Electrostatic Comb-drive Actuator (ECA) with the slope angle α=20. Together with the trapezoidal ones, the rectangular ECA with identical dimension was also designed and fabricated for comparison purpose. In order to reduce calculating deviation, the fringing effect was also taken into consider while carrying out theoretical analysis. The obtained results pointed out the fact, that the trapezoidal ECA excels the rectangular ones with the same numbers of teeth in electrostatic force and displacement generation, while requires relatively low driving voltage. But it is also observed that with higher driving voltage (larger than 50V), the trapezoidal ECA starts to lose its stability (the lateral pull-in phenomenon occurs).

A force measuring microsystem bases on electrothermal V-shaped actuator

“…are the deformation of left and right springs. Equation (8) describes a relation between driving force F1 and deformation yB at the middle of test beam. If yB = 24.14 µm, g1 = 2 µm and P = 0.245 mN as mentioned above, we need the driving force of V-shaped actuator: F1 ≈ 2.838 mN.…”

“…Determining force/load in micro system is an interesting problem for MEMS designers and researchers because it is difficult to measure perfectly value of micro/nano forces [6][7][8]. Moreover, their values may be changed while operating because of the periodic voltage or random load.…”