This paper presents a bistable microswitch fully batch-fabricated on a single glass wafer, comprising of a microactuator, a signal transformer, a microspring and a permanent magnet. The bistable mechanism of the microswitch with large displacement of 160 μm depends on the balance of the magnetic force and elastic force. Both the magnetic force and elastic force were optimized by finite-element ...

Shape memory alloys (SMAs) are a class of smart materials characterized by shape memory effect and pseudo-elastic behavior. They have the capability to retain their original form when subjected to certain stimuli, such as heat or a magnetic field. These unique properties have attracted many researchers to seek their application in various fields including transportation, aerospace, and biomedic...

An iris-type variable aperture fabricated using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology is described. The device contains a number of shutter blades, which are each driven by a separate microactuator, and translated synchronously to create a variable polygonal aperture. The optical performance of devices with different numbers of blades is compared using simple analytic models and diff...

The ability to systematically probe in vitro cellular response to combinations of mechanobiological stimuli for tissue engineering, drug discovery or fundamental cell biology studies is limited by current bioreactor technologies, which cannot simultaneously apply a variety of mechanical stimuli to cultured cells. In order to address this issue, we have developed a series of microfabricated plat...