Fabrication of an S-shaped microactuator

Abstract

We have developed a new fabrication process for electrostatic actuators having an S-shaped film element, which we previously invented for such applications as gas valves. The developed process allows batch fabrication of the actuator whose S-shaped structure height, which is equal to the amount of vertical film displacement, is of the order of a few hundred micrometers. The microactuators are fabricated by stacking three wafers. The middle wafer contains the sputtered Ni film strip which is buckled into an S-shape during the stacking process. The length of film necessary for the S-bend profile has a folded structure which is stretched after stacking. The size of the fabricated chip was 5 mm/spl times/5 mm, and the vertical film displacement was 220 /spl mu/m. The actuator was operated by electrostatic force when the applied voltage was more than 70 V.