Effect of shape factors and material property variations on modeling the response of thermal microactuators

This work addresses the effects of electro-thermal property variations and conductive shape factors on modeling the response of electro-thermal microactuators. A 3D modeling technique that accounts for conductive heat loss is implemented to simulate the actuator steady state and transient response. The deflection response predicted by the model is compared to experiment and simplified modeling techniques that use conductive shape factors. Effect of polysilicon thermophysical property variations on the actuator response is also investigated using the developed model. The results of the simulations show that simplified models with shape factors can be used for actuator simulations for both the steady-state and transient cases.