Study of Electrostatic Actuator Voltage Reduction with a Tri-Electrode Actuator with Varying Pull-Down Voltage

Proceedings

Shafai, Lot¹  Zhou, Yu²  Shafai, Cyrus³  Burley, Greg⁴ 

[1] Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.;Dept. Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 5V6, Canada;National Research Council of Canada, Hertzberg Institute of Astrophysics, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7, Canada;Presented at the Eurosensors 2018 Conference, Graz, Austria, 9–12 September 2018.

关键词: electrostatic actuator;    adaptive optics;    finite element analysis;    MEMS;    tri-electrode topology;   

DOI  :  10.3390/proceedings2130928

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Employing a tri-electrode topology for electrostatic actuators can significantly reduce needed control voltages. The tri-electrode topology employs a perforated intermediate electrode between the MEMS structure and pull-down electrode, and provides a low voltage control for the MEMS structure. Simulations of a spring supported MEMS in a conventional electrostatic actuator offering ~4.5 µm displacement with 20 V on the pull-down electrode, were compared to the tri-electrode actuator. This study showed that the intermediate electrode can act to provide similar controlled displacement with only 1/3 and 1/4 the voltage for the cases with the pull-down electrode held fixed at 20 V and 40 V respectively. A fabricated prototype experimentally showed that the intermediate electrode can provide similar displacement control with only 1/6 the normal control voltage of an electrostatic actuator.

【 授权许可】

CC BY