Abstract
Abstract
As an important part of Micro-Electro-Mechanical systems (MEMS), micro-actuators have a direct impact on the performance of MEMS devices. This paper presents the effects of sidewall inclination of deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) on the performance of U-shaped electrothermal micro-actuators. The electrothermal micro-actuator models with sidewall inclination angles from -5° to 5° are simulated through finite element method (FEM) by ANSYS to study the influences on the output displacement and the highest node temperature. The simulation results show that electrothermal micro-actuator with larger sidewall inclination angle has more displacement deviation. In addition, larger voltage amplifies the deviation of displacement. The highest node temperature decreases with the increase of the sidewall inclination, and the deviation is small.
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy