Design, fabrication and testing of a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) MEMS parallel kinematicsXYstage

Abstract

This paper presents the design, kinematics, fabrication and characterization of a monolithic micro positioning two degree-of-freedom translational (XY) stage. The design of the proposed MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system) stage is based on a parallel kinematics mechanism (PKM). The stage is fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate. The PKM design decouples the motion in the XY directions. The design restricts rotations in the XY plane while allowing for an increased motion range and produces linear kinematics in the operating region (or workspace) of the stage. The truss-like structure of the PKM also results in increased stiffness by reducing the mass of the stage. The stage is fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer using surface micromachining and a deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) process. Two sets of electrostatic linear comb drives are used to actuate the stage mechanism in the X and Y directions. The fabricated stage provides a motion range of more than 15 µm in each direction at a driving voltage of 45 V. The resonant frequency of the stage under ambient conditions is 960 Hz. A high Q factor (∼100) is achieved from this parallel kinematics mechanism design.

Design of high-bandwidth high-precision flexure-based nanopositioning modules

“…(b) A scheme of parallel kinematic XY stage design using parallelogram mechanisms[11]. (c) The other XY stage design with prismatic joints and parallelogram mechanisms[26,27]. (d) A high-bandwidth XY stage implemented from scheme (c).…”

Modeling and performance evaluation of a flexure-based XY parallel micromanipulator

“…In addition, if a larger workspace is required, a larger amplification ratio can be designed for the lever or PZT with longer stroke can be adopted for such a purpose. Moreover, if the presented XY stage is implemented on a SOI wafer as the treatment in [18], a high resonant frequency with the magnitude of hundreds of Hertz can be easily achieved, which is more suitable for high-frequency applications.…”

“…Although a similar structure is then implemented on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer as a MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system) stage in [18], the stage may undergoes vulnerabilities due to the stress stiffening and large parasitic motions. Hence, the CPM architecture has been recently improved and proposed in the preliminary works [19], where the architectural parameters of the stage are optimized to deliver minimal parasitic motions subject to performance constraints on actuation stiffness and resonant frequency, etc.…”

An integrated mechatronic approach for the systematic design of force fields and programming of microactuator arrays for micropart manipulation

“…However, improvements in the design are needed, in order to enable selectively curling of one or more actuators out of plane, according to the desired direction of actuation. Some other alternative choices of micromanipulation arrays could include polyimide joint actuators [21] or electrostatic micropositioning stages [22], with the necessary design and operation improvements, so as to meet the requirements of selective actuation of the actuators of a motion pixel for complex manipulation schemes. …”