Modeling, Manufacturing and Characterization of Electrostatic Actuators towards Electrostatic Silicon MEMS-Micropumps

Silicon micropumps are suitable for use in various industrial and medical applications, as they can be flexibly designed to fulfil specific requirements in terms of pressures and transported media. Although there are numerous different driving mechanisms, piezoelectrically actuated micropumps are the most common. However, the use of piezoelectric ceramics has certain downsides, such as the presence of lead in the material as well as complex assembly procedures. An electrostatically driven micropump is capable of solving these issues and offers further advantages. For the development of a micropump with this drive mechanism, the actuator is of fundamental significance, therefore this publication focuses on the electrical and mechanical characterisation of the actuation unit. Subsequently, these measurement and simulation results are used to demonstrate a conceptual electrostatic micropump and illustrate the possible forthcoming fabrication. This work is a contribution to the development of a sustainable electrostatically driven silicon micropump suitable for wafer-level manufacturing.