Abstract
The microgripper plays a critical role in micromanipulation systems; however, the handling accuracy of traditional driving microgrippers suffers from external vibration due to requiring connecting wires for an external power supply. By contrast, light driving has many advantages of remote non-contact manipulation, wireless energy transfer and no induced electromagnetic noise. In this study, an opto-electrostatic repulsive combined driving mechanism was proposed, and then a novel light-operated microgripper that used an opto-electrostatic repulsive actuator was designed and simulated. The static performance of the light-operated microgripper was investigated via simulation and numeric calculation results. The overall size of the microgripper was 1.3 mm × 0.7 mm × 1.027 mm, and the micro-objects ranging from 0 to 1000 μm in size could be manipulated and held using light. The proposed microgripper had many outstanding characteristics, such as a larger stroke, high response speed, remote non-contact manipulation, easy to integrate with an integrated circuit (IC) process and free from external interference. In addition, the dynamic control experiments of the photo-induced voltage of the PbLaZrTi (PLZT) ceramic were carried out, which shows that a stable electrical field could be obtained using the effective control methods that were developed.
Highlights
Micromanipulation in biological and biomedical engineering and the microassembly of micro-objects in microelectromechanical systems are emerging research fields with great challenges but their own promising and broad futures in this century
To solve the above problems, a novel light-operated mode is presented in this paper, where the electrostatic repulsive-force actuator is actuated by the photovoltage generated by the PLZT ceramic, which can avoid the problem of requiring a high driving voltage
When a voltage generated by the PLZT ceramic under the irradiation of ultraviolet light was applied to the moving electrode and the central fixed electrode while the other two fixed electrodes were grounded, an electrostatic repulsive force acting on the moving electrode was generated and pushed the moving electrodes upward
Summary
Micromanipulation in biological and biomedical engineering and the microassembly of micro-objects in microelectromechanical systems are emerging research fields with great challenges but their own promising and broad futures in this century. The electrostatic attractive actuators suffer from the “pull-in” effect that leads to structural instability and a limited stroke, which are the major problems restricting its applications To solve these problems, some researchers reported an electrostatic repulsive-force actuator, which can eliminate the “pull-in” effect and achieve a large stroke [23], but the electrostatic structure needs a higher driving voltage. To solve the above problems, a novel light-operated mode is presented in this paper, where the electrostatic repulsive-force actuator is actuated by the photovoltage generated by the PLZT ceramic, which can avoid the problem of requiring a high driving voltage. The light-operated microgripper based on the opto-electrostatic repulsive combined actuator has several advantages, such as remote non-contact manipulation, a fast response speed and no electromagnetic interference, and makes up for the shortcomings of traditional driving types, especially for micromanipulation in special independent environments, such as a high or a low vacuum. The dynamic control experiment of photovoltage was performed to offer an accurate and stable driving voltage and eliminate the residual photovoltage
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