Comparison of theoretical and experimental determination of the flexing of scratch drive actuator plates

Li, L. and Brown, J.G. and Uttamchandani, D.G.; (2002) Comparison of theoretical and experimental determination of the flexing of scratch drive actuator plates. In: Proceedings of SPIE. SPIE Press, pp. 180-189. ISBN 9780819447173 (https://doi.org/10.1117/12.483170)

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Abstract

The scratch drive actuator (SDA) is a key element in microelectromechanical System (MEMS) technology. The actuator can be designed to travel very long distance with precise step size. Various articles describe the characteristics of scratch drive actuators.3, 6, 8 The MEMS designer needs models of SDA in order to incorporate them into their Microsystems applications. The objective of our effort is to develop models for SDA when it is in the working state. In this paper, a suspended SDA plate actuated by electrostatic force is analyzed. A mathematical model is established based on electrostatic coupled mechanical theory. Two phases have been calculated because the plate will contact the bottom surface due to the electrostatic force. One phase is named non-contact mode, and another is named contact mode. From these two models, the relationship between applied voltage and contact distance has been obtained. The geometrical model of bending plate is established to determine the relationship between contact distance and step size. Therefore we can use those two results to obtain the result of step size versus applied voltage that we expect. Finally, couple-field electro-mechanical simulation has been done by commercial software IntelliSuite. We assume that the dimension of SDA plate and bushing are fixed. All the material properties are from JDSU Cronos MUMPs. A Veeco NT1000 surface profiling tool has been used to investigate the bending of SDA plate. The results of experimental and theoretical are compared.

ORCID iDs

Li, L., Brown, J.G. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2857-5001 and Uttamchandani, D.G. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2362-4874;
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