Micromachined S-shaped actuator

Author

Shikida, Mitsuhiro ; Sato, Kazuo ; Harada, Takeshi

Author_Institution

Dept. of Micro Syst. Eng., Nagoya Univ., Japan

fYear

1995

fDate

4-6 Oct 1995

Firstpage

167

Lastpage

172

Abstract

We report on a new type of micromachined electrostatic actuator with an S-shaped film element. The actuator consists of a pair of planar electrodes with an S-shaped film between them. The S-bend film moves back and forth through switching on applied voltage to each electrode plate. An advantage of this actuator is that it allows vertical film displacement to the order of several hundreds of micrometers. The actuator is suitable for gas control devices which require large conductance under rarefied pressure conditions. We made a prototype S-shaped microactuator by using micromachining technologies. It was composed of three stacked wafers. We succeeded in constructing an S-shaped film element with a structure height of 220 μm and a thickness of 0.4 μm. The S-shaped film was able to be operated by electrostatic force when the applied voltage was about 70 V

Keywords

electrostatic devices; flow control; microactuators; microelectrodes; micromachining; valves; 0.4 micron; 220 micron; 70 V; S-bend; S-shaped film element; dead space problem; gas control devices; large conductance; microactuator; microfabrication batch force; micromachined electrostatic actuator; microvalve; planar electrode pair; rarefied pressure conditions; stacked wafers; vertical film displacement; Control systems; Electrodes; Electrostatic actuators; Force sensors; Gases; Intelligent sensors; Microactuators; Micromachining; Prototypes; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Micro Machine and Human Science, 1995. MHS '95., Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Nagoya

Print_ISBN

0-7803-2676-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MHS.1995.494234

Filename

494234