Author details

6. Conclusions

36 Actuators

operation process.

eliminated.

Thanks

In this paper, a complete work regarding an SU-8 electro thermally actuated microgripper based one a cascaded V-shaped configuration was presented. The gripper were designed, fabricated and investigated experimentally and numerically. Two kind of fabrication were presented, using only a gold thin layer for the heater avoiding the deposition of an adhesion metal, like chromium and using Cr/Au/Cr films for the heaters. The optimized design consists of three material layers symmetrically disposed. The metallic layer for the heater is implanted between two SU-8 based structure layers with the same thickness. From numerical simulation, the out-of-plane displacement of the tips was found to be always lower than 100 nm during the

Therefore, the fabrication processes can be used in the fabrication of different SU-8 based

The results show that the microgripper can work in air in his maximal stage for an electrical current up to 25–26 mA and a temperature up to 165C. A 50 μm jaw gap can be obtained for 24–25 mA. The temperature of the microgripper SU-8 tip remains below 35C. Our experimental and the simulation results demonstrate that our microgripper fulfills the design requirements having a thickness of less than 20 μm and the out-of-plane displacement almost

A comparison between the simulations results and the measurements was presented regarding the displacements/opening of the arms and the maximal temperatures reached in the structure.

Over 26–28 mA the device is damaged due to the SU-8 transformations over the glass transi-

This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CCCDI – UEFISCDI, project number 22/2016, within PNCDI III, ERA-MANUNET-II-Robogrip project "Microgrippers as end-effectors with integrated sensors

I thank to Muaiyd H. Al-Zandi and C. Wang (Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh) for the help with the electrical measurements, to R. Muller for the support, to C. Tibeica for the discussions and electrical measurements, to R. Gavrila for the nanoindentation measurements and to

MEMS devices actuated electrothermally with the in-plane deflection.

The simulation results are in good agreement with the measurements.

tion temperature reached in the structure.

D. Varsescu for the thermal measurements.

for microrobotic applications (ROBOGRIP)" (2016-2017).

Acknowledgements

Rodica-Cristina Voicu

Address all correspondence to: rodica.voicu@imt.ro

National Institute for Research and Development in Microtechnologies-IMT Bucharest, Romania
