Thermally driven polysilicon actuators for lateral displacement

A novel one-mask; polysilicon actuator driven by thermal expansion is devel oped, modeled and tested. The structures are heated by electric current due to resistive dissipation. Thermal strain is magnified by two mechanical me chanisms-lever and parallelogram. The device is tested in air and has a lat eral 8 mu m-displacement by applying a low voltage (below 3.5 V). The criti cal current to reach melting point is about 67 mA with the input voltage le ss than 5 V. The simulation results by analytical and FEM schemes are compa red with experimental data. The maximum output forces is measured with a bu ilt-in cantilever beam and is calculated to be about 3.3 mu N.