A colloid micro-thruster system

A PCB (print circuit board)-based micro-thruster and a silicon micro-pump are fabricated and integrated into a novel colloid micro-thruster system. The system works on an electrical colloid propulsion principle. A silicon micro-pump is designed and fabricated as the propellant supplying unit of the micro-thruster system, which obtains the maximal volume-flow rate up to 300 mul/min and the minimum down to 10 mul/min, with the flow control precision better than mul/min. The micro-thruster is fabricated with PCB processing technology, which is simpler and cost-cheaper, compared with other micromachining technologies. For the measurement of micro-thrust, an experiment set-up based on vibration test is developed and applied for the thruster system. The primary test results show that the PCB-based colloid micro-thruster can produce controllable thrust up to the order of RN. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.