The sensitivity of MEMS devices to radiation is reviewed, with an emphasis on radiation levels representative of space missions. While silicon and metals generally do not show mechanical degradation at the radiation levels encountered in most missions, MEMS devices have been reported to fail at doses of as few krad, corresponding to less than one year in most orbits. Radiation sensitivity is li...

The mechanisms for micromechanical actuation that are most practical, and have been the most applied, are electrostatic attraction and piezoelectric effect. Both scale well into mirro-dimensions, are relatively compatible with microfabrication processes, and are also suitable for displacement sensing. Of the two, piezoelectric devices are much better able to provide strong forces, and while ele...

In this paper, we report a new push-pull-type SPDT (single pole double throw) switch actuated by the combination of electromagnetic and electrostatic forces for low power and low voltage operation. The switch is initially actuated by large electromagnetic force to change its state and is held to maintain its state by applying electrostatic force to reduce static power consumption. The electroma...

We present a simple and effective ratcheted microfluidic mixer that uses contact charge electrophoresis (CCEP) of a micron-scale particle to rapidly mix nonpolar liquids. CCEP combines contact charging and electrostatic actuation to drive the continuous oscillatory motion of a conductive particle between two electrodes subject to a constant (DC) voltage. We show how this oscillatory motion can ...

Electrostatic, comb-drive actuators have been designed for applications requiring displacements of up to 150 μm in less than 1 msec. A nonlinear model of the actuator relates the resonant frequency and the maximum stable deflection to the actuator dimensions. A suite of experiments that were carried out on DRIE, single-crystal silicon, comb-drive actuators confirm the validity of the model. Fou...

The Electrostatic Charging Laboratory for Interactions between Plasma and Spacecraft (ECLIPS) research vacuum chamber has recently been developed as part of the Autonomous Vehicle Systems at University Colorado Boulder. experimental spacecraft charging facility allows conducting experiments relevant to charged astrodynamics in a space-like environment. This paper discusses development, characte...

This paper presents in-plane electrostatic comb-drive actuators with stroke as large as 245 μm that is achieved by employing a novel Clamped Paired Double Parallelogram (C-DPDP) flexure mechanism. For a given flexure beam length, comb gap, and actuation voltage, this is currently the largest comb-drive actuator stroke reported in the literature. The C-DP-DP flexure mechanism design offers high ...