Design and Simulation of a Microtweezers using a Controlled Displacement Comb Drive

This paper introduces the design of MEMS micro tweezers actuated by a novel concept of jagged-edge comb drives. The actuator is integrated into the device itself and the lateral displacement of the gripping pads is identical to that experienced at the comb drive level. Finite element analysis is used to prove the concept of controlled-displacement of the movable comb fingers, achieved by prescribing the amount of electrostatic force generated by the device. Due to the complex interactions between the electrostatic domain (comb drive) and mechanical domain (springs) the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) formulation was chosen as a robust methodology of modeling the multiphysics aspect of this device