Thermo-electro-mechanical V-shaped actuator design and simulations

This work details the 3D finite element electro- thermo-mechanical simulation of a current driven V-shaped actuator. The latter consists of two suspended polysilicon arms in a V configuration. The interest of this structure is that it can provide an important linear displacement parallel to the substrate. Stationary and parametric simulations were performed using COMSOL 3.3 and the obtained results were validated experimentally. In addition, a first attempt to model the actuator's ageing behaviour has been made using an empirical model.