Design and fabrication of a silicon microvalve for large flow application

This paper presents a normally closed Electro-thermal driven 3-way gate micro-valve which is able to meet the requirements of industrial applications like large flow rate and high pressure. The micro-valve consists of three layers of glass-silicon-glass bonded together. The total chip size of the valve is 10mm*8.2mm, with a thickness of 1.32mm. The lateral thickness of the actuator and movable parts in the silicon layer is 300µm. The experimental results show that a mechanical linkage capable of over 150µm of motion is realized under a voltage of 6V, which is good enough for control the valve.