A MEMS-Based Electrostatic Field Sensor Using Out-of-Plane Thermal Actuation

In this paper, we report a MEMSbased electrostatic field sensor (EFS) using out-of-plane thermal actuation. The EFS mainly consists of shuttles, sensing electrodes, and clamp-clamp beams. The clamp-clamp beam with a hump is treated as thermal actuator to drive the shuttle, which is to modulate the external electrostatic field. The EFS was fabricated by a standard surface micromachining process and the area of the EFS is less than 2.5mm×2.5mm. The EFS has been tested and achieved a resolution of 60V/m.