Improved Operation of Micromechanical Comb-Drive Actuators through the Use of a New Angled Comb Finger Design

An original design for a new comb finger structure to be used in electrostatically driven actuator devices is presented and experimentally demonstrated. The new design is seen as one viable alternative to the already prevalent rectangular comb finger design and can be considered as a crossbreed between a conventional comb finger design (0 = 0 a parallel-plate design (0 = 900). The design topology is verified both analytically, to show the validity of fundamental effects, and experimentally. Experimental results show the fabricated device based on the new comb finger design achieves twice the displacement of a standard rectangular comb finger based device under equal operating conditions, hence demonstrating twice the force generation capability, while at the same time maintaining overall device stability.