Nitrogen incorporated ultrananocrystalline diamond thermal actuators: Design, fabrication and actuation

In this paper we report for the first time the design, fabrication and actuation of a nitrogen incorporated ultrananocrystalline diamond (N-UNCD) electro-thermal actuator. A numerical simulation has been carried out for the optimization of the displacement with respect to the geometry of the expanding beams and an angle of 2.3 degrees is demonstrated to be the optimum. The displacement of a Chevron type micro-electro mechanical system (MEMS), fully fabricated in diamond, is demonstrated by means of an optical microscopy-based detection with 10 nm resolution. The observed displacement of the central body is 520 nm for 80 μm long driving beams.