MEMS force microactuator with displacement sensing for mechanobiology experiments

This paper presents a Micro Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) that performs electrostatic force actuation and capacitive microdisplacement sensing in the same chip. By driving the actuator with a given voltage, a known force can be applied to a microsample under test by using a silicon probe tip, while the obtained displacement is measured. This allows to extract the mechanical properties of the microsample entirely on chip, and to derive its force-displacement curve without external equipment. The proposed device is intended for mechanobiology experiments, where the microsample is made of biological tissues or cells. The device generates a force in the order of few micronewtons and a maximum displacement of 1.8 μm can be measured.