APPLICATIONS FOR SURFACE-MICROMACHINED POLYSILICON THERMAL ACTUATORS AND ARRAYS

Electro-thermal (E-T) actuators have been developed to complement the capabilities of electrostatic actuators. The thermal actuators present ed here can be arrayed to generate high forces. Equally significant is that the single actuators and arrays of actuators operate at voltages and currents that are directly compatible with standard microelectron ics. This paper demonstrates how combinations of two or more electroth ermal actuators can be applied to a variety of basic building-block mi cromechanical devices: array of ten lateral actuators; array of ten ve rtical actuators; vertically actuated two-axis tilting mirror; corner- cube retroreflector actuated by lateral array; grippers over the die e dge with flip-over wiring; rotary stepper motor; flip-up optical grati ng on rotary stepper motor; linear stepper motor; and a linear stepper motor for assembly of hinged structures.