An electro-thermally driven microactuator with bilateral motion in plane and out-of-plane

In this paper, we present a new electro-thermal microactuator to have bilateral motion in plane and out-of-plane by only varying input voltage (current) modes. In applications, the microactuator may provide larger operating range or act as a multimode switch, optic tweezer or manipulator. The microactuator is the proper combination of the basic microactuators proposed by Pan (1997) and Guckel (1992), respectively. The operating principle is based on the asymmetrical thermal expansion of the beams with different lengths and cross sections. By applying voltage (current) on different contact pads, and heating different beams, the microactuator can produce bilateral motion in plane or out-of-plane. For preliminary study, finite element models for the electro-thermo-mechanical behavior of the microactuator have been performed to demonstrate the feasibility of the design principle. Design parameters significantly influencing the performance of the microactuator are also discussed