A large-displacement thermal actuator designed for MEMS pitch-tunable grating

• Published in: Journal of micromechanics and microengineering Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 015001 - 015001 (12)
• Main Authors: Yang, Yu-Sheng, Lin, Yu-Hsin, Hu, Yi-Chiuen, Liu, Cheng-Hsien
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.01.2009; Institute of Physics
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Instruments, apparatus, components and techniques common to several branches of physics and astronomy; Mechanical engineering. Machine design; Mechanical instruments, equipment and techniques; Microelectronic fabrication (materials and surfaces technology); Micromechanical devices and systems; Physics; Precision engineering, watch making; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Actuators; Semiconductor materials; Thermal activation; Precision engineering; Large displacement; Micromanipulation; Microelectromechanical device; Production process; Optical arrays
• ISSN: 0960-1317; 1361-6439
• DOI: 10.1088/0960-1317/19/1/015001

A large-displacement thermal actuator designed for the MEMS pitch-tunable grating device has been designed, simulated, fabricated and characterized in this paper. To avoid the inevitable limits of common thermal actuators developed in the MEMS community, this paper concludes with two design rules and proposes a novel large-displacement thermal actuator based on these two rules. The characterized performance of this thermal actuator shows output displacement at more than 300 mum within the 19 V driving voltage. The grating device with the assistance of this thermal actuator can adjust the pitch continuously from 30 mum to 38 mum with an extension ratio of more than 25%. This thermal actuator could also be integrated easily with other micro devices without the delicate micro-assembly process since its fabrication is compatible with the general semiconductor process.