Protruding microgripper with force amplification and parallel jaw motion for in-situ sample manipulation in SEM and FIB-machines

We report on, to our best knowledge the first, protruding electrostatic microgripper with force amplification and parallel jaw motion for in-situ manipulation of sub-micrometer thick membranes in combined Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) / Focussed Ion Beam (FIB) machines. The gripper is used "upside-down" such that the highly doped silicon substrate shields the electrical fields resulting from the electrostatic actuation. Mechanical amplification is used to attain 3 /spl mu/m jaw-displacement with up to 195 /spl mu/N force from a comb-drive actuator array consisting of 1320 finger-pairs. Gripper movement was tested ex-and in-situ. The gripper-jaws moved several microns in both cases. FIB images shifted slightly at 40 V actuation voltage but were undistorted showing the effectiveness of shielding.