Flexoelectricity allows a dielectric material to polarize in response to a mechanical bending moment and, conversely, to bend in response to an electric field. Compared with piezoelectricity, flexoelectricity is a weak effect of little practical significance in bulk materials. However, the roles can be reversed at the nanoscale. Here, we demonstrate that flexoelectricity is a viable route to le...

This research effort is focused on the development of large angle, out-of-plane bimorph MEMS micromirrors fabricated in the PolyMUMPs foundry process. Based on design constraints of the PolyMUMPs process, current designs fabricated do not meet the requirements to enable large angle optical steering. Through Comsol modeling and simulation, several post-processing techniques were discovered that ...

The FOSDT (the First Order Shear Deformation Theory) is taking into consideration to study the static behavior of a bimorph beam, with a delamination zone between the upper and the lower layer. The effect of limit conditions and lengths of the delamination zone are presented in this paper, with a PVDF piezoelectric material application. A FEM “Finite Element Method” is used to discretize the be...

 Latching MEMS angular positioning stages have been constructed by deep reactive ion etching and undercut of bonded silicon-on-insulator. Rotation is powered by a primary linear drive acting on a tangential drive pin attached to a passive stage. The approach is extensible to other tilt axes using inserted components. The linear stage is driven by buckling electrothermal actuators. Latching is ...