Design and FEM analysis of a new micromachined electro-thermally actuated micromanipulator

This paper presents the designs for a new configuration of an electro-thermally actuated SU-8 polymeric micromanipulator for biological and MEMS components manipulations. Two models are proposed with the following dimensions of the arms: 400 and respectively 800 μm length, for a thickness of around 20–25 μm. The electro-thermally driven micromanipulators have been studied using computer simulations, based on finite element method performed with CoventorWare software tool. Results from performed numerical coupled electro-thermo-mechanical and transient electro-thermal simulations have been used to analyze both static and dynamic behavior of the micromanipulator. The influence of the achieved temperature in the arms along with the in-plane tips deflections as a function of the applied voltage has been investigated. The numerical investigations show a good mechanical behavior of the micromanipulators (displacement of the arms up to 10 μm for the first model and 20 μm for the second one). Also, the handling force (between 0 and 36 μN) of the designed micromanipulators has been investigated.