Development and application of a laterally driven electromagnetic microactuator

A laterally driven electromagnetic microactuator (LaDEM) is introduced, and a micro-optical switch is designed and fabricated as an application. LaDEM offers parallel movement of the microactuator to the silicon substrate surface (in-plane mode). Polysilicon-on-insulator wafers and a reactive ion etching process were used to fabricate high-aspect-ratio vertical microstructures, which allowed the equipping of vertical micromirrors. A fabricated single leaf spring had a width of 1.2 mum, thickness of 16 mum, and length of 920 mum. The resistance of the fabricated leaf spring for the optical switch was 5 Omega. The deflection of the leaf spring started to profoundly increase at about 400 mA, and it showed snap-through phenomenon over that current value. Owing to the snap-through phenomenon, a large deflection of 60 mum was detected at 566 mA. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.