In this work we report on the design, fabrication and characterization of an electrostatically actuated meso scale microelectromechanical motion transformer and amplifier. The actuator corporate a transducer with multiple parallel plate electrodes and is realized as a compliant mechanism relying on flexible pseudo hinges. The 5000 μm × 4000 μm device converts linear motion of the transducer into mechanically amplified angular motion of a rotating lever. By combining a highly efficient small-gap parallel plate electrode and a motion amplification the device is designed to provide a lever tip displacement of 60μm, an initial blocking force of 0.001N at zero displacements and a blocking force of 0.012N in the maximal displacement configuration when the parallel plate actuator is in its closed position. The devices were fabricated using DRIE from a SOI wafer with (111) front surface orientation and a 150μm thick device layer. The devices were operated in ambient air conditions and the functionality of the device was demonstrated experimentally. The voltage-displacement dependence and resonant curves were built using image processing procedure implemented in Matlab. Excellent agreement between the results provided by the Finite Elements models and the experimental data was observed. The results of the work demonstrate an ability to achieve both large displacements and high blocking forces in an electrostatically actuated meso scale compliant mechanism.
