Study of Pull-In Voltage in MEMS Actuators

P. D. Hanasi[1], B. G. Sheeparamatti[1], B. B. Kirankumar[1]
[1]Basaveshwar Engineering College, Bagalkot, Karnataka, India
Published in 2014

Micro cantilevers are the basic MEMS structures, which can be used both as sensors and actuators. The . The objective of this work is to study concept of pull-in voltage and how to reduce the same. Voltage is applied to upper cantilever beam and lower contact electrode is made as ground. By increasing common area between cantilever beam and contact electrode, and also by reducing thickness of the cantilever beam, it is tried to reduce the pull-in voltage .The common area between cantilever beam and contact electrode dimension is increased and the pull-in voltage is reduced from 19.7V to 12.1 V. Similarly the thickness of the cantilever beam is decreased from 1µm to 0.25µm in the steps of 0.25 µm then pull-in voltage is reduced from 57V to 7.2V.