CAPACITIVE BASED CMOS-MEMS MICROACTUATOR FOR BIOMEDICAL APPLICATION

The purpose of this project is to design electrostatic microacluator for
biomedical application using CMOS and MEMS. The technology of
microelectromechanical system (MEMS) is widely used in many daily applications
such as aerospace Microsystems, biomedical applications, consumer electronic
devices and so on. Specifically in biomedical applications, the experimentation
always related to a macro meter objects manipulation. Due to that constraint, the
tools that being used are also in macro meter-sized. Therefore, basically this project
implements a micro actuator with an integrated capacitive force sensor which can be
used in biomedical applications in handling cells and micron-size objects. An
actuator for macro-size objects is already in market and it is not suitable to be used to
the small cells like micron-cells. In my research, I had determined that there are
several actuation principles of different types of gripper which are eleclmstatic,
electromagnetic, electro thermal and electro osmotic. The problem where the
procedure of handling the active cells must be taken seriously now can be solved
with the invention of the grippers. Tn order to design the structure of this device,
certain requirements should be taken into considerations. This project will improve
the design for microactuator by applying electrostatic principles. The device then
simulated in fvlATLAB to find other parameters needed for the microgripper. The
performance of this device will be determined by its sensitivity for gripping the Hela
cells. The device can be operated with 58V of actuator voltage supply and produced
9.9238 J.lN to have displacement of 1 J.lm. The results show that the device can be
used with low voltage and able to be used for cell manipulations.