G
GK Lau
Authored
20 records found
This paper presents simulation and measurement results characterizing a novel design of an electro-thermally actuated micro-gripper for micro-particles manipulation. The gripper structure consists of a comb-like, high aspect ratio silicon frame with an integrated aluminum heater
...
This paper presents a novel electro-thermal microgripper based on integrated silicon-polymer laterally stacked microactuators. The device consists of a serpentine-shape deep silicon structure with a thin film aluminum heater on the top and filling polymer in the trenches among th
...
An electrothermally-activated polymeric stacked actuator is presented to generate a rectilinear in-plane actuation. The actuator has a novel composite design, comprising of SU8 thermal expandable polymer, a silicon heat conductor and a top thin-film aluminium heater. The silicon
...
This paper presents a novel design of an electrothermally actuated unimorph, consisting of a metallic heater, a heat conducting structure of asymmetric shape, and thermally expandable polymer. The polymer is confined by the thermal conducting structure of large depth, in order to
...
This paper explores the possibility of advancing the actuation capability of a thermal actuator design, based on the polymeric SU-8 epoxy with embedded silicon (Si) microstructures. Theoretical models for the actuator design are established in an attempt to evaluate the thermoela
...
This paper presents a novel design of actuated elastomers using rigid, vertical standing electrodes. The electrodes of high rigidity are designed to have small width, small gaps and large depth in order to produce large electrostatic forces at a moderate voltage, as well as to re
...
This paper presents a novel 2D electro-thermal microgripper based on integrated silicon-polymer laterally stacked forward actuators. Displacements up to 8 and 13 µm along x-axis and y-axis at 2 V are measured. The microgripper is capable of rotating the clamped object both clockw
...
This paper presents the design, simulation and characterization of a new type of in-plane thermal unimorph, which utilizes composite SU-8/silicon microstructures. The unimorph consists of a silicon skeleton and SU-8 photoresist, which encapsulates the silicon skeleton. The silico
...
An SU-8 polymeric actuator with an embedded silicon skeleton has recently been reported to have good actuation performance. As a composite, it has room for performance improvements by design. Yet, it has not been optimized for the best performance. In this paper, we perform a par
...
The authors report on the analysis of the polymer constraint effect and its use for a micromachined electrothermal bimorph actuator. The actuated displacement is enhanced due to the polymer constraint effect. Both the thermal expansion and apparent Young's modulus of the constrai
...
A powerful and effective design of a polymeric thermal microactuator is presented. The design has SU-8 epoxy layers filled and bonded in a meandering silicon (Si) microstructure. The silicon microstructure reinforces the SU-8 layers by lateral restraint. It also improves the tran
...
This paper presents the design, simulation and characterization of a V-shape thermal actuator, which incorporates silicon/SU-8 composite. The design exploits the confined SU-8 layers in the composite for effective thermal actuation. The micro-fabricated actuator (1000-µm long, 56
...
This paper presents a novel design concept to actuate elastomers using comb-like interconnects and vertically standing electrodes of small width, with the capability of generating out-of-plane displacements. The motion characteristic of the actuators is studied using analytical a
...