Thermal actuation of a GaAs cantilever beam

The design and performance of a thermally-actuated GaAs cantilever beam are presented. To actuate the cantilever beam an integrated GaAs MESFET heater was used. A comprehensive cantilever thermal actuation performance is anal ysed by experiment and simulation. The thermally-actuated GaAs cantilever s hows excellent linearity and a high electro-mechanical conversion efficienc y (Gamma(E) = 0.802 mu m mW(-1)). The method of two-dimensional numerical m odelling and simulation is proposed to study its thermal and thermo-mechani cal properties. The measured and simulated thermo-mechanical and electro-me chanical conversion characteristics are compared, indicating the viability of the simulation method used for further micromechanical analysis.