Silicon capillary gripper with self-alignment capability

This paper reports a novel capillary microgripper. The microgripper is fabricated from silicon using deep reactive ion etching and is designed to be especially suitable for self alignment. The gripper is shown to retain its self-alignment capabilities even when the head of the gripper does not match the size of the component. This mechanism is analyzed using numerical simulations and tested in pick-and-place experiments using commercial laser diode components. The advantage of the capillary microgripper has been demonstrated in picking and aligning microchips from adhesive films, which requires substantial picking force.