Out-of-Plane Knife-Gate Microvalves for Controlling Large Gas Flows

Abstract

This paper considers design issues for microvalves for large gas flow control. It introduces out-of-plane knife-gate microvalves as a novel design concept and a proportional microvalve concept for pressure control applications. The design of three different actuator-gate configurations and first prototypes are presented. The first valve prototypes feature thermal silicon-aluminum bimorph actuators and the pressure-flow performance per chip area of the demonstrator valve presented is greatly increased using out-of-plane actuation and an out-of-plane orifice. The characterization of the actuators and of the pressure-flow performance is presented. The prototype valve allows for a flow change of DeltaQ= 3.4 standard liters per minute (SLPM) at a pressure change of DeltaP= 95 kPa (P <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">in</sub> = 196.3 kPa, P <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">out</sub> = 101.3 kPa) on an active chip area of only 2.3times3.7 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> 1515