Modeling and Thermal Metrology of Thermally Isolated MEMS Electrothermal Actuators for Strain Engineering of 2D Materials in Air

Abstract

We present electrothermal microelectromechanical (MEMS) actuators as a practical platform for straining 2D materials. The advantages of the electrothermal actuator is its high output force and displacement for low input voltage, but its drawback is that it is actuated by generating high amounts of heat. It is crucial to mitigate the high temperatures generated during actuation for reliable 2D material strain device implementation. Here, we implement a chevron actuator design that incorporates a thermal isolation stage in order to avoid heating the 2D material from the high temperatures generated during the actuation. By comparing experiment and simulation, we ensure our design does not compromise output force and displacement, while keeping the 2D material strain device stage cool. We also provide a simple analytical model useful for quickly evaluating different thermal isolation stage designs .Index Terms-Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS), 2D materials, strain engineering, thermal management, Raman spectroscopy, IR thermometry, finite-element simulation.

Monolayer MoS2 Strained to 1.3% With a Microelectromechanical System

“…Further, we place many soft heat sink springs (3 μm wide) in parallel near the sample stage to create a low thermal impedance between the sample stage and the MEMS die. This geometry creates effectively a thermal resistor divider circuit dramatically, cutting down on the heat that reaches our atomically thin samples [16]. The samples are placed on the stage on the left side of Fig.…”

An efficient electro‐thermo‐mechanical model for the analysis of V‐shaped thermal actuator connected with driven structures

“…4 Similarly, mechanical test platforms for various materials are built by taking advantage of V-shaped actuators. 4,[6][7][8] RF MEMS switches driven by V-shaped thermal actuator were designed in Reference 9 and these designs showed the capability to work at high RF power levels. In Reference 10, V-shaped actuator was used to tune the resonant frequency.…”

“…Abbas et al presented an in situ test platform for nanoscale‐thin films using cascaded V‐shape actuators 4 . Similarly, mechanical test platforms for various materials are built by taking advantage of V‐shaped actuators 4,6‐8 . RF MEMS switches driven by V‐shaped thermal actuator were designed in Reference 9 and these designs showed the capability to work at high RF power levels.…”

When finite-size effects dictate the growth dynamics on strained freestanding nanomembranes

“…in radiofrequency or thermally degradable devices, magnetotransport systems, micromechanical systems, infrared phototransistors and also for biological applications. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] We consider in the following a hetero-epitaxial nanomembrane where a thin crystalline lm of thickness h is coherently deposited on a thin substrate of thickness e that is supposed to be freestanding and at. The lattice mismatch between the lm and substrate generates strain, and the longrange elastic eld penetrates throughout the system, building an explicit dependence on geometry.…”