1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to an actuator to be used in a micro-electromechanical system, and more particularly to, an electromagnetic-type actuator for providing a parallel displacement to the surface of a microelectronic substrate.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An actuator which is the most important component in the micro-electromechanical system, has been implemented through a lot of driving principles. As one example, there are an electrostatic actuator using an electrostatic force between two different electrodes, a piezoelectric actuator using a piezoelectric material, a thermal actuator using thermal expansion of materials or thermal expansion of air contained within a limited space, an electromagnetic actuator using an electromagnetic force, and the like.
Many micro-electromechanical devices have been manufactured by means of above-mentioned driving principles. For example, there are a micro-gear, a micro-motor and a micro-machined device which can be moved or apply force, or the like. These micro-electromechanical devices can be applied to various applications. For example, they can be applied to an ultra fine fluid control device having a micro-pump, a valve or a mixer, an optical device having an optical switch, a shutter, or an attenuator, and an electrical device having a relay or an RF switch.
Of them, an electromagnetic-type actuator is driven using an electromagnetic force generated by means of coupling of a coil through which current flows and a magnetic substance. This electromagnetic-type actuator is advantageous in that it has relatively great displacement and force, and a rapid response speed. However, there are not so many cases that the electromagnetic actuator is applied to the micro-electromechanical system, compared to the micro actuator using other driving principle. The reason is that the electromagnetic-type actuator has many disadvantages such as complication of manufacturing process and difficulty of a fine displacement with its various advantages. In addition, the electromagnetic-type actuator has many complications in manufacturing process and requires a large number of masks, since a coil and a magnetic substance are used.
A typical example of a driving principle of the electromagnetic-type actuator includes U.S. Pat. No. 5,945,898 entitled ‘Magnetic Micro-actuator’ and issued Aug. 31, 1999, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,124,650 entitled ‘Non-Volatile MEMS Micro-Relays Using Magnetic Actuators’ and issued Sep. 26, 2000.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,945,898 proposes a magnetic actuator in which a plate made of a magnetic substance stands up in a vertical direction by means of a magnetic field vertically generated in the electromagnetic plate. Further, the U.S. Pat. No. 6,124,650 proposes a structure in which a plurality of metal wires of a straight line is formed on a micro electronic substrate, a cantilever is formed at the side of the metal wire and the cantilever is floated on the metal wire. At this time, the magnetic substance is moved up and down depending on the direction of current flowing through the metal wire since the magnetic substance is formed on the cantilever. The micro cantilever is operated by the up and down movement of the cantilever.
Most actuators using the above electromagnetic force as the driving principle are manufactured as follows. A coil is first formed on an electromagnetic substrate. An empty space is then formed on the coil and a cantilever or a membrane is secondly formed. Next, a magnetic substance is formed on it. At this time, the two U.S. patents proposed above do not go beyond this range. This type of the electromagnetic-type micro-electromechanical actuator is basically limited to movement in a vertical direction to the electromagnetic plate.
The present invention is contrived to solve the above problems and an object of the present invention is therefore to provide an electromagnetic-type micro-electromechanical actuator in which a conductive beam formed on a micro electronic substrate is arranged over a magnetic substance, thus the conductive beam is movable at in-plane mode along the direction of current.
In order to accomplish the above object, a micro-electromechanical actuator according to the present invention comprises a micro electronic substrate having a surface, a magnetic substance formed at one side of the micro-electronic substrate; and a plurality of conductive beams formed on one or both sides of the micro-electronic substrate, wherein the conductive beams are moved along a given path in parallel extended against an upper surface of the micro-electronic substrate by means of Lorentz force due to an electromagnetic force of the magnetic substance.
The aforementioned aspects and other features of the present invention will be explained in the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
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The present invention will be described in detail by way of a preferred embodiment with reference to accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals are used to identify the same or similar parts.
Referring now to
At this case, the magnetic substance 1 may be formed of a magnet such as paramagnetic substance or may be formed by coils wound on the micro electronic substrate 2. The micro electronic substrate 2 may be formed of one of silicon, glass, PCB (printed circuit board), acryl, polymer, metal and a magnetic substance. The conductive beam 4 may be formed of a single conductive material such as single metal, single crystal silicon or polysilicon, heterogeneous metal material or composite materials such as silicon and metal, glass and metal or polymer and metal.
If current is applied to the conductive beam 4 and magnetic flux(Φ) is applied as shown in arrow of
In order to smooth the movement of the conductive beam 4 having this characteristic and expand displacement of the conductive beam 4, structures shown in
Referring to
b) shows that a circular conductive beam 4b makes the conductive beam 4, shown in
By reference to
As mentioned above, the conductive beam may be implemented as a single beam shape but may be implemented as a multi beam shape as
In
b) shows that a multi-conductive beam 4e having a driving plate which moves in parallel to the micro electronic substrate 2 at the central portion of the multi-conductive beam 4d shown in
The driving plate may be manufactured to have different shapes depending on the purpose of use. In particular, the driving plate may be formed to have a vertical shape or a block shape.
By reference to
In addition, as shown in
Meanwhile, a method of transforming a horizontal movement of the conductive beam in the electromagnetic-type micro-electromechanical actuator to a vertical movement or a rotating movement is shown in
Referring now to
Further, in order to change the horizontal movement of the conductive beam 4 to a rotating movement, a gear (not shown) or a toothed wheel (not shown) may be connected to both ends or central portion of the conductive beam 4.
b shows a structure in which a bar 25 is installed at the central portion of the circular conductive beam 4b shown in
c shows a structure for expanding the linear displacement of the first transformation beam 26 and the second transformation beam 28 of a circular shape shown in
Further, as shown in
Also, a new method is proposed by which the location of the magnetic substance for generating a magnetic flux is differently positioned to change the direction of a magnetic flux to a desired direction, as shown in
Referring to
Referring now to
A method of manufacturing the conductive beam and the silicon spacer proposed by the present embodiment will be described by reference to
Referring to
By reference to
Referring now to
As above, if the metal layer 56 surrounds the external portion of the silicon beam 54, problems that may occur in the beam made of silicon or the beam made of a metal can be solved. In other words, most of current flowing into the beam made of silicon are dissipated as heat since the beam made of silicon has a higher resistance than the beam made of a metal even when the surface of silicon is doped with a high concentration,. On the contrary, in case of the beam made of a metal, there is a problem that a fatigue breakage may occur since the current of the beam made of the metal is better than that of the beam made of silicon but the mechanical strength of the beam made of the meal is lower than that of the beam made of silicon.
At this time,
Meanwhile, referring now to
Referring now to
By reference to
As mentioned above, the present invention proposes an electromagnetic-type micro-electromechanical actuator in which a conductive beam formed in a micro electronic substrate is positioned on an upper side of the magnetic substance, so that the conductive beam is movable in an in-plane mode to the micro electronic substrate. Therefore, there is an advantage in the present invention that it can be applied to most of electromagnetic micro-electromechanical system requiring an in-plane mode.
Further, the present invention has advantages that a process of manufacturing the electromagnetic micro-electromechanical actuator is simple and IC integration with a circuit is simple, compared to a process of manufacturing an electromagnetic micro-actuator.
The present invention has been described with reference to a particular embodiment in connection with a particular application. Those having ordinary skill in the art and access to the teachings of the present invention will recognize additional modifications and applications within the scope thereof.
It is therefore intended by the appended claims to cover any and all such applications, modifications, and embodiments within the scope of the present invention.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2002-2495 | Jan 2002 | KR | national |
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5606447 | Asada et al. | Feb 1997 | A |
5945898 | Judy et al. | Aug 1999 | A |
6124650 | Bishop et al. | Sep 2000 | A |
6133670 | Rodgers et al. | Oct 2000 | A |
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6621390 | Song et al. | Sep 2003 | B2 |
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Number | Date | Country |
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2001-0083923 | Sep 2001 | JP |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20030132822 A1 | Jul 2003 | US |