Fabrication and test of thermal vertical bimorph actuators for movement in the wafer plane

Abstract

We have fabricated thermal actuators based on vertical bimorphs, which consist of silicon beams side-coated with aluminium. When they are heated by an electrical current they bend like a bimetal and produce movement in the wafer plane. The fabrication process is based on silicon-on-insulator substrates and uses standard silicon micromachining techniques combined with a special aluminium sidewall deposition process. The displacement has been measured as a function of the input power and the results have been compared with an FEA-simulation.