Design and fabrication of a diaphragm type thermo-buckled microactuators

This study presents a novel diaphragm type thermo- buckled microactuator with only a driving voltage of 3 V and under a working temperature far below 100degC. It´s a sandwich structure composed of a platinum (Pt) resistor between two parylene films with different thickness. The platinum resistor is assigned as a heating source. Therefore, the parylene diaphragm with different thicknesses of top and bottom layers is heated by the embedded Pt resistor. The non-uniform temperature rise of the parylene diaphragm not only generates an out-of-plane thermo-buckling deformation, but also induces an asymmetric deflection inclined to upward or downward direction. The maximum displacement of the diaphragm is 0.4 mum and the cutoff frequency is 1000 Hz by a driving voltage of 3 V.