Performance Improvement of an Electrothermal Microactuator Fabricated Using Ni-Diamond Nanocomposite

摘要

In this paper, a low-temperature stress-free electrolytic nickel (EL) deposition process with added dispersed diamond nanoparticles (diameter < 0.5μm) is developed to synthesize Ni-diamond nanocomposite for fabricating electrothermal microactuators. Device characterization reveals dramatic performance improvements in the electrothermal microactuator that is made of the nanocomposite, including a reduction in the input power requirement and enhanced operation reliability. In comparison with the microactuator made of pure nickel, the nanocomposite one can save about 73% the power for a 3μm output displacement and have a longer reversible displacement range, which is prolonged from 1.8μm to more than 3μm. Furthermore, the nanocomposite device exhibits no performance degradation after more than 100 testing cycles in the reversible regime. The enhancements increase with the incorporation of the nanodiamond in a nickel matrix, so the Ni-diamond nanocomposite has potential for application in MEMS fabrication.