A Study of the Effect of the Fringe Fields on the Electrostatic Force in Vertical Comb Drives

Abstract

The equation that describes the relationship between the applied voltage and the resulting electrostatic force within comb drives is often used to assist in choosing the dimensions for their design. This paper re-examines how some of these dimensions—particularly the cross-sectional dimensions of the comb teeth—affect this relationship in vertical comb drives. The electrostatic forces in several vertical comb drives fabricated for this study were measured and compared to predictions made with four different mathematical models in order to explore the amount of complexity required within a model to accurately predict the electrostatic forces in the comb drives.

Cylindrical Free-Standing Mode Triboelectric Generator for Suspension System in Vehicle

“…However, the electrode has finite area, so the edge effect should be considered. As the electrode width decreased, the edge effect became larger compared with the electric field from the charged plane; thus, the electric field became smaller [18,19]. Considering these two effects, 3 mm was the optimum width of the electrode for the highest output performance.…”

Development of electrostatic actuators with large out-of-plane deflection and its application in scanning display

“…The displacement of the vertical comb-drive is limited by the smaller thickness between the movable comb and fixed comb [39], [95]. The comb thickness of the bulk micromachined actuators is usually in tens of microns which limits their DC travel range.…”

Capacitive Interdigital Sensors for Flexible Enclosures and Wearables

“…4(a). Its capacitance was calculated under various hypotheses and reported in papers as [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Several authors [19,20,[23][24][25] have presented calculations for interdigital sensors with strips (electrodes) not in the same plane, which is of special interest for flexible sensors.…”

“…B. Capacitance of the planar interdigital sensorout-of-plane parallel electrodes [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] According to [27] for a pair of successive fingers, the capacitance of a comb sensor with plan parallel but out of plane successive electrodes is, for a pair of successive electrodes, the capacitance is [27] where the notations are as in Fig. 4(b).…”

“…7(a,b). In this case, the out-of-plane parallel electrodes case applies [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] and the formulas to use are those in [27].…”