Modeling the Electrostatic Actuation of Nanomechanical Pillar Dimers

Nanomechanical properties of vimentin intermediate filament dimers.

The cell's cytoskeleton, providing the cell with structure and shape, consists of a complex array of structural proteins, including microtubules, microfilaments and intermediate filaments. Intermediate filaments play a crucial role in mechanotransduction and in providing mechanical stability to cells, in particular under large deformation. By utilizing molecular simulation, here we report a nan...

Electrostatic actuation of silicon optomechanical resonators.

Cavity optomechanical systems offer one of the most sensitive methods for detecting mechanical motion using shifts in the optical resonance frequency of the optomechanical resonator. Presently, these systems are used for measuring mechanical thermal noise displacement or mechanical motion actuated by optical forces. Electrostatic capacitive actuation and detection have been shown previously for...

MEM Analog Tunable Gratings by Electrostatic Actuation

Nonlinear static and dynamic behaviors of a microresonator under discontinuous electrostatic actuation

This article studied static deflection, natural frequency and nonlinear vibration of a clamped-clamped microbeam under discontinues electrostatic actuation. The electrostatic actuation was induced by applying AC-DC voltage between the microbeam and electrode plate. In contrast to previous works, it was assumed that length of the electrode plate was smaller than that of the microbeam. In additio...

Parallel-plate electrostatic actuation with vertical hinges

A microactuating structure with vertical polyimide hinges has been designed, fabricated and tested. Unlike traditional microactuators, which are located on the substrate surface, this new actuation mechanism is capable of producing linear motion at a point far from the substrate. This advantage can make it possible to drive other out-of-plane folded structures for on-wafer or out-of-wafer appli...