Diamagnetic bearings for MEMS: Performance and stability analysis

Diamagnetic materials could be utilized with permanent magnets to offer a rigorous passive solution for micro bearing as a result of scale reduction effect. In this paper, we investigate the basic configuration of diamagnetic bearing and evaluate the consequent magnetomechanical behaviors in terms of load-carrying capacity and the restoring in the axial, lateral and inclination directions. Based on the derived dynamic coefficients, linear vibrational characteristics and nonlinear parametric resonance of the rotor-bearing system are studied. Results obtained indicate two major instability problems for diamagnetic bearing and shed light on the design framework for its application at the microscale.