A low voltage electrostatic torsional micromachined microwave switch

A novel push-pull configuration using torsion spring and leverage to decrease actuation voltage and stress of microwave switch is proposed. Actuation voltage of this structure is thirty percent lower than similar structure, and also maximum stress is half. Decreasing in stress and strain based on S-N diagrams will increase lifetime. The achieved results are due to structural modification without losing any micromachined microwave switch parameters which is an advantage. In the proposed structure two additional plates are placed above the beam. These plates are symmetrical with the lower plates considering the position of the beam. By adding these extra plates the area of the electrostatic field is doubled and hence the actuation voltage can be reduced. The proposed structure was simulated using ANSYS 5.7 software. The same simulation was carried out for the structure without upper plates. The simulation carried out for both structure with the similar materials, geometry and assuming no residual stress. The obtained results indicate that the actuation voltage in our proposed structure is reduced from 0.7 V to 0.5 V and the stress on the beam is reduced from 1.35 MPa to the 570000 Pa in our case.