Abstract—This paper presents design and fabrication of a
MEMS thermal actuator using SOI technology. The thermal
actuators are used in, micro grippers, micro mirror and
switching applications by applying voltage on different contact
pads, causing beams with pseudo bimorph characteristics
heated, thereby the microactuator can produce lateral motion
in plane or out of plane. The narrow or hot arm heats up and
expands more than the wide or cold arm deflecting the device
toward the cold arm. Thermal actuators are more power
efficient than electrostatic actuators. The present work carries
the design, fabrication and characterization of the thermal
actuator wherein numerical simulation are carried out in
COMSOL multiphysics tool and fabrication was done at
MUMPS facility MEMSCAP. The simulated results on
displacement versus voltage are verified experimentally.
Index Terms—SOI, microactuator, COMSOL, SEM.
The authors are with Nanomaterials and National MEMS Design Center,
Mechanical Engineering Department, Birla institute of Technology and
Science, Pilani, India (e-mail: cirivijaypilani@gmail.com,
nitinipun@gmail.com).
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Cite:Vijay Kumar and N. N. Sharma, "Design and Validation of Silicon-on-Insulator Based U Shaped Thermal Microactuator," International Journal of Materials, Mechanics and Manufacturing vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 86-91, 2014.
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