Microelectronic Engineering 98 (2012) 467–471

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Microelectronic Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mee

Simulation and experimental investigation of a novel electrostatic

microgripper system
Mohsen Hamedi ⇑, Parisa Salimi, Milad Vismeh
School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Microgrippers are amongst the preferred tools for microassembly applications and have drawn extensive
Available online 25 July 2012 attention of the researches on their mechanism and actuation principles. One of key parameters is effi-
ciency of microgripping systems in handling more than one part at a time. Multi-part-gripping mecha-
Keywords: nism is one of the least investigated subjects in the published literature. In this paper, an electrostatic
Microassembly microgripping system using comb drive mechanism is designed with the capability of gripping two micro
Microgripper components simultaneously. S-type springs are utilized to amplify the displacement range of microgrip-
Electrostatic actuators
per arms. The objects gripped with this microgripping system are diverse from biomedical (e.g. arrow
Comb-drive actuators
shaped microshuttles); MEMS and microelectronic field with the dimensions from 145 to 100 lm for
the operating voltage of 20–80 V.
A mathematical model with derived formulas is developed showing displacement of the tool versus
applied voltage. Estimation of the performance of comb-drive is done through considering five capacitors
all around a comb finger. The designed model predicts the displacement of the rotor more accurately
compared to dominant method of calculating the equivalent capacity of only two lateral capacitors. Fur-
thermore a multi-field simulation of the electrostatic comb finger of the comb drive is performed using
finite element method. The FEA results show good agreement with the prediction obtained from analyt-
ical model.
Microgripper function is enhanced through introducing a suspension system with optimum stiffness
values. It helps the microgripper work under lower levels of actuating voltage. Finally, to verify analytical
results, the microgripper is fabricated and the displacements are measured that compare well with ana-
lytical results and numerical simulation.
Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction as microgripper. In some cases [6], even microsensors are involved

Micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) utilized in optics,
electronics, mechanics, fluids and chemistry include microparts.
Increase in the volume of micro-scale fabrication has made micro-
grippers vital tools for handling, holding and assembling. Growth
in the need for microgrippers in this area is an outcome of this
trend. In this case, larger output force, wide range of operation,
lower operation voltage, higher efficiency, less fabrication proce-
dures and mass production capability are the key issues.
In the recent decade, developments in material and actuation of
microgrippers are accompanied by novel designs and gripping
techniques. Microgrippers operate by applying forces provided by
their actuators. Depending on the application, the types of actua-
tors vary including: electrostatic [1], electrothermal [2], piezoelec-
tric [3], electromagnetic [4] and shape memory alloy (SMA) [5].
Microactuators are capable of being used as actuation agent as well
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mhamedi@ut.ac.ir (M. Hamedi).
in the actuation.
In this research, a microgripper system with electrostatic comb
drive mechanism as actuating factor is proposed. The system is
characterized by fast and reliable function, low power consump-
tion, eliminating coils and magnetic cores, simple fabrication pro-
cedure and long lifetime. To predict the behavior of this
microgripper and investigate the design parameters, the working
principles are discussed first.
2. Design introduction
As depicted in Fig. 1 an electrostatic microgripping system
using comb drive mechanism is designed, fabricated and charac-
terized. Two independent actuation sets not only provide simulta-
neous gripping of two microparts, but also introduce the possibility
of asymmetrical gripping of micron objects by accepting different
amount of actuation voltage. Furthermore, in order to increase
the displacement range, S-type springs are embedded in the struc-

0167-9317/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mee.2012.07.096
468 M. Hamedi et al. / Microelectronic Engineering 98 (2012) 467–471
Fig. 1. proposed microgripper design.
ture. The other important characteristic that differentiates this
novel design from the prior models is reduced actuation voltage;
this is achieved by using hybrid combination of Folded Flexure
and Clamped–Clamped beam. The combination of these basic mod-
els, improves the stability of the whole structure by providing
appropriate stiffness. Thus, increased displacement range, simulta-
neous gripping and asymmetric gripping of microparts are the
advantages of this design which increases its efficiency.
2.1. Electrostatic comb drive actuators
As mentioned above, this microgripper enjoys the advantage of
using comb actuators as actuation mechanism. These actuators,
which one is a fixed electrode and the other a movable one, are
called stator and rotor, respectively. By applying potential differ-
ence, comb drive beams turn to parallel capacitors and produce
electrostatic force between rotor and stator which move the rotor
parallel to comb drive beams.
Several theoretical models have been developed for investigat-
ing the function of the actuators discussed in [9–11]. The dominant
trend, i.e., modeling a cell by two parallel capacitors to determine
the displacement, is characterized by the following relation [12]
which is called previous formulation.
 
1 rotor displacement which clarify the advantage of the new formu-
x ¼ e0 T m2
kxg
where x is rotor displacement, e0 is the permittivity of vacuum (and
approximately that of air), T is the comb finger thickness, v is apply-
ing voltage, kx is the axial stiffness suspension system and g is rotor
and stator lateral gap.
2.2. Proposed model
In previous works [12], overlap between stator and rotor along
with comb length and width are demonstrated to affect rotor dis-
placement while in Eq. (1) there is no point of considering these
parameters. This issue undermines the accuracy of the model.
The developed five-capacitor model is displayed in Fig. 2. Each
comb drive actuator is composed of a set of parallel capacitors
which include lateral, end and corner capacitors. The effects of cor-
ner capacitors are negligible [13]; thus, it is not considered.
The procedure for determining rotor displacement is the same
as published models except it considers five capacitors which
change the equivalent capacity of the system. Adding the capacity
of lateral and end capacitors, the equivalent capacity becomes:
 
ðx0 þ xÞT wT
ct ¼ cl þ ce ¼ 2e0 þ ð2Þ
g ðl  x0  xÞ
Fig. 2. The developed five-capacitor comb drive model.
where ct, cl and ce are considered as total (equivalent) capacity, the
capacity of two lateral capacitors and three end capacitors, respec-
tively. Also l, x0 and w stand for comb length, primary overlap be-
tween stator and rotor and comb width, respectively. Substituting
equivalent capacity in Eq. (3):
 
1 1 1 ðx0 þ xÞ w
U¼ kx x2  ct ¼ kx x2  e0 T þ v2 ð3Þ
2 2 2 g ðl  x0  xÞ
A physical system is called stable when it reaches the lowest
level of energy and the stable point occurs in the minima of energy
graph. Thus, using Eq. (3) extremum of energy function is obtained
which is exact solution of the system:
kx gx3  ðe0 T v 2 þ 2kx guÞx2 þ ðkx gu2 þ 2e0 T v 2 uÞx  e0 T v 2 ðgw þ u2 Þ ¼ 0
ð4Þ
Using Maclaurin series, stability condition, and algebraic equa-
tions, a simplified equation is generated as follows which is called
new formulation:
e0 T v 2 ðl  x0 Þððl  x0 Þ2 þ wgÞ
x¼ ð5Þ
gðkx ðl  x0 Þ3  2e0 Twv 2 Þ
According to Eq. (5), in addition to comb thickness, lateral gap
between planes, actuation voltage, stiffness of the system holding
the rotor, comb beam width, length and their overlap length affect
ð1Þ
lation in comparison with the previous ones. Adding the effects of
the discussed parameters increases the accuracy of the mathemat-
ical model and reduces the difference between experimental and
mathematical results.
2.3. Verification of equations
In order to evaluate the accuracy of proposed formulation, rotor
displacement is calculated with both new and former methods
assuming kx (Axial stiffness of suspension system) = 0.02 N/m, v
(Actuation voltage) = 80 V, T (Comb finger thickness) = 25 lm, l
(Comb length) = 25 lm, w (Comb Width) = 80 lm, x0 (Stator and
rotor overlap) = 50 lm. Eventually, the results are compared with
Eq. (4). According to Eq. (4), displacement equals to 8.66 lm whilst
the old and new method give the values of 8.08 and 7.08 lm,
respectively. Obviously, the new method has reduced the error
percentage from 18.2 to 6.7 which is 11.5% increase in accuracy.
Reducing the activation voltage in electrostatic systems, has
been of greatest interest in MEMS for years [14,15]. Therefore,
actuating voltage is a critical parameter which must be under con-
trol. By considering constant properties related to actuator and the
whole structure geometry, we investigate the effects of potential
difference in rotor displacement. Since electrostatic actuators work
 M. Hamedi et al. / Microelectronic Engineering 98 (2012) 467–471 469

Fig. 6. Free body diagram of 1/4 model suspension system.

in relatively high voltages, it becomes important to characterize

the structure in higher amounts of potential difference. Rotor dis-
placement in terms of actuating voltage is depicted in Fig. 3 for all
three solutions. It shows that in higher rates of voltage, the differ-
ence between models against actuation voltage is more recogniz-
able. Also Fig. 3 shows that new formulation has a better
agreement with the exact formulation in comparison with the pre-
vious method, especially in higher amounts of input voltage.

2.4. Finite element simulation

Fig. 3. Rotor displacement versus input voltage for three different formulation.
In this section, finite element simulation is performed on the
comb drive system and output displacement is compared with

Fig. 4. FEM result in comparison with new (Eq. (5)) and old formulation (Eq. (1)).

Fig. 5. Schematic of proposed suspension system. Fig. 7. Schematic of fabrication process.

470 M. Hamedi et al. / Microelectronic Engineering 98 (2012) 467–471

the analytical method. According to Fig. 4, analytical results shows which produces higher displacements under lower activation
better agreement with electrostatic multi-field simulation of comb voltage.
finger which is due to considering end capacitors in line with lat-
eral ones as discussed before.
2.6. Fabrication and experiments
2.5. Suspension system enhancement
To fabricate the structure, standard silicon microfabrication
Different types of suspension systems which are commonly processes on P-type single silicon wafer with h100i orientation
used in microgrippers are Clamped–Clamped beam, crab-leg fex- are employed. These processes, as illustrated in Fig. 7, include
ure and folded flexure. A novel design of microgripper which uses dry oxidation, e-beam evaporation, physical vapor deposition
hybrid combination of Folded Flexure and Clamped–Clamped (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD), standard photolithog-
beam is shown in Fig. 5. Given the free-body-diagram (Fig. 6) raphy, vertical etching, RIE, chemical etching and thin layer
and applying equivalent stiffness, the serial and parallel capacitor deposition.
principles, stiffness for system substructures in axial, lateral and The significant point in fabrication process is to use gold thin
rotational directions are as follows: layer deposition instead of doping which definitely applies lower
! subsequent tensions to the device. This thin layer prevents in-
3
2ETb crease of residual stresses. SEM image of the fabricated structure
K xt ¼ 4 ð6Þ
2L31 þ L32 is illustrated in Fig. 8.
After fabricating the structure, experiments are performed on
  the model to measure displacement of the arms. Probe stations
2EbT
K yt ¼ 4 ð7Þ are used to apply the voltage to the gripper so that its arms under-
2L1 þ L2
go displacement that is observed under optical microscope. Image
  processing techniques are used to obtain voltage displacement val-
10EbT
K ht ¼ 4 ð8Þ ues. This is done by comparing different number of pixels with re-
6ð1 þ #Þð2L1 þ L2 Þ
gards to the reference pixels showing the position of the arms
where E is the elasticity module and m Poisson’s ratio, and L1 and L2 under no activation.
and b are shown in Fig. 6. Increasing stability of the microgripper is Fig. 9 displays the output displacement in terms of activation
achieved via changing structure stiffness. The hybrid design enjoys voltage for both experimental and FEA works. The measurement
a reduced axial stiffness (K xt ), compared to each elementary design, is done for one of the moving arms while the other is stationary.

Fig. 8. SEM images of fabricated structure.

 M. Hamedi et al. / Microelectronic Engineering 98 (2012) 467–471
Fig. 9. Displacement versus actuation voltage.
Comparing the results shows higher values in FEA approach for
measuring points which can be attributed to:
- In FE model, attenuation of air is ignored which results in
obtaining higher values for displacement.
- Possible fabrication errors which are caused by photolithogra-
phy mask printing, distraction of UV beam and intrinsic errors
related to every single fabrication technique.
- Intrinsic errors of measurement method which basically occur
in different measuring approaches.
3. Conclusions
In this work, an electrostatic microgripper using comb drive
actuation mechanism is introduced which is capable of gripping
two microparts simultaneously. This microgripper is featured by
wide ranges of arm displacement via using s-type springs. A non-
linear formulation is derived to calculate the output displacement
of movable arms which produced results with better accuracy in
471
comparison with the precedent formulations. The new formulation
enjoys the advantage of engaging five capacitors rather than two
capacitors in the previous models. This change made the model
more accurate so that under 80 V, a 6.7% error was obtained; while
at the same voltage, the old model produced 18.2% error in com-
parison with the exact method. As actuation voltage increased,
the old formulation showed less accurate results. The less gap be-
tween the results of new formulation and exact method, verified
the accuracy of the new formulation.
Additionally, by introducing the novel suspension design, the
activation voltage is reduced to some noticeable extent. Also by
fabricating a prototype and experimental measurements, 40 lm
displacement of microgripper is achieved under 80 V of potential
difference.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of
University of Tehran for this research under grant number
8151299/1/03.
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