Design and fabrication of novel devices using the Casimir force for non-contact actuation

The Casimir force has been found to be the cause of stiction problems in MEMS devices resulting in permanent adhesion of close adjacent surfaces. However, it has also been proposed that the Casimir force can be harnessed to achieve non-contact actuation in MEMS sensors. One way of achieving this is to use the lateral component of the Casimir force through suitably constrained moving parts and designed surfaces. Three devices were designed and fabricated using UV lithography and dry etching. Device 1 is designed to demonstrate non-contact actuation using the normal Casimir force in the wafer plane, device 2 uses the lateral Casimir force for parallel motion non-contact actuation and device 3 uses the lateral Casimir force for perpendicular non-contact actuation. All devices use similar comb drives and capacitive sensors. The design of the devices, fabrication limitations and expected qualitative results are discussed.