• KIEE International Transactions on Electrophysics and Applications
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• v.5C no.6
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• pp.264-269
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• 2005

The electrostatic comb drive actuator is one of the main building blocks in the field of micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). Most of the comb actuators presented previously have fingers that are rectangular in shape which produce a stable, constant force output during actuation. The use of sawtooth fixed fingers in a comb drive, which were presumed to produce an increasing force output with displacement due to the increased number of regions where fringing force, the driving force of comb actuators, appear. The dimensions of the sawtooth were derived from finite element analysis (FEA) of simplified finger models with sawtooth type fingers of various dimension and were compared to the rectangular finger model that showed that the sawtooth type fingers have $7\~9$ times stronger driving force. Finally, comb drive actuators with sawtooth type and rectangular fingers were fabricated and although the gap was bigger, the comb actuator with sawtooth type fingers showed about 1.7 times greater electrostatic force than the one with rectangular fingers at equal driving voltages. In conclusion, using the proposed sawtooth type comb fingers in a comb drive makes it possible to increase its displacement or reduce the driving voltage.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.7-12
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• 2008

This paper presents a lateral resistive contact RF MEMS switch using comb drive. Our goal was to fabricate the RF MEMS switch with high reliability and good RF characteristics for front end module in wireless transceiver system. Therefore, comb drive is used for large contact force in order to achieve low insertion loss and small off-state capacitance in order to achieve high isolation. The single crystalline silicon is used for mechanical reliability. As a result, the developed switch showed insertion loss less than 0.44 dB at 2 GHz, isolation greater than 60 dB, and low actuation voltage at 26 V.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.385-391
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• 2016

We demonstrated experimentally a variable optical frequency comb source using a cascaded dual parallel Mach Zehnder modulator (DPMZM) and a phase modulator (PM). With this simple configuration and applying low drive voltages, we generated variable comb source composed of spectral lines 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 with 10-GHz frequency spacing, also generated 2 and 3 spectral lines with 20 GHz frequency spacing. The generated comb source maintains high spectral coherence across the entire bandwidth with good spectral flatness (within 1-dB for 2, 3, 5, 7 comb lines, within 2-dB for 9-comb lines and within 3-dB for 11 comb lines). The flat and variable comb source is mainly achieved by manipulating 6 operating parameters of DPMZM, setting RF amplifier gain, connected at phase modulator and phase shifters. Hence the method is simple and offers great flexibility in achieving flat and variable comb spectrum, which is experimentally demonstrated. This brings advantages of power efficiency due to low driving voltages, simplicity and cost effectiveness to the system.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1996.07c
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• pp.1974-1976
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• 1996

An electrostatically driven comb actuator with $525{\mu}m$ height was fabricated using (110) Si anisotropic etching in the Potassium Hydroxide(KOH) solution. The etch-rate and etch-rate ratio are strongly dependent on the weight % and temperature of KOH solution. We developed the optimal condition for the anisotropic etching on (110) wafer with varying these conditions. The force that the comb-drive actuator generates is inversely proportional to the distance of gap and proportional to the height of the comb electrodes. The electrodes must have the high aspect ratio. The (110) Si anisotropic etching is very useful to get a high aspect ratio structure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.591-592
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• 2008

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1998.07g
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• pp.2515-2517
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• 1998

The micro fresnel lens(MFL) was modeled and fabricated on a XY-stage electrostatically driven by comb actuator. The modeled MFL was approximated as a step shape with 4-phase and 4-zone plate. The focal length and diameter of the MFL is 20mm and 912${\mu}m$, respectively. The XY-stage suspending the MFL is designed to generate a large static displacement up to about 20${\mu}m$. On SOI substrates, we first fabricated MFL using the RIE(reactive Ion etching) technology and then patterned and etched bulk silicon to make XY-stage. After the fabrication of all structures on top side of the SOI substrates. $Si_3N_4$ was deposited for passivation of all structures using PECVD(plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition). All the MFL systems width comb drive actuator were released by KOH etching from the bottom side of the SOI wafer using double-sided alignment technique. In fabrication of MFL, a dry etching conditions is established in order to improve surface roughness and to control the etched depth.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1995.10a
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• pp.1089-1092
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• 1995

A planar vibratory gyroscope using electrostatic actuation and electromagnetic detection is proposed. The gyroscope has large sensitivity and can be fabricated by using surface micrimachining, bulk micromachining and conventional machining technology. In this paper, the gyroscope and the electromagnetic detecting system equations are derived to determine the output characteristics for the planar vibratory gyroscope using electrostatic acturation and electromagnetic detection. The maximum output is obtained when the driving frequencyequals to the detecting frequency. The resonant frequencies of the resonator are determined by the beam stiffness, i.e. the material constants and spring dimensions. The dimensions of the beams are determined using the analytic vibration modelling. The expected resonant frequencies are 200Hz both and the sensitivity is 62mV/deg/sec with 4000 electronic circuit amplifying coefficient for an AC drive voltage of 3V bias voltage of 15V and DC field current of 50 mA.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.585-586
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• 2006

본 논문에서는 MEMS 용량형 변위 센서의 제작과 함께, 미세 변위 측정을 위한 테스트 샘플을 제작하였다. 아래의 그림 1, 2는 각각 스테이지에 장착할 MEMS 용량형 변위 센서 및 미세 변위 측정을 위한 테스트 샘플의 개념도를 보여주고 있다. 테스트 샘플의 감지 부분은 스테이지에 장착할 센서와 정확히 일치를 시켰으며, 미세 변위를 주기 위해서 comb-drive actuator 형태의 운동부를 두었다. 운동부에서는 DC 및 AC 전압을 인가함으로써 미세 변위를 얻을 수 있었으며, 사용된 DC 전압은 20V였으며, 1.4kHz의 AC 전압을 크기를 변화시키며 인가하였다.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1994.11a
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• pp.422-424
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• 1994

A comb drive electrostatic micro gripper was designed and fabricated. We designed it analytically using electrostatic force and cantilever deflection equation. In fabrication, we used LIGA-like technology consisted of Ni electroplating through polyimide patterned by $O_2$ Plasma RIE and Al sacrificial layer. This micro gripper was designed to handle an optical fiber which is $125{\mu}m$ in diameter.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.16-24
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• 2011

The angular electrostatic microactuator using skewed electrode array (SEA) scheme was proposed. The moving and fixed electrodes are arranged to make the driving force perpendicular to the rotating moment of arm. By changing the electrode overlap length, the magnitude of electrostatic force and stable displacement will be changed. In order to optimize the design, electrostatic FE analysis were carried out and the empirical force model was established for SEA. Simulation was performed to make the comparison between conventional actuators and SEA. The proposed SEA generates actuating torque 2 times greater than a comb-drive and stable actuator displacement 40% greater than a parallel plate type actuator. The angular electrostatic microactuator using skewed SEA scheme was designed and fabricated using SoG process.