Polymer Magnetic Composite Core Boosts Performance of Three-Dimensional Micromachined Inductive Contactless Suspension

We introduce a newly developed polymer magnetic composite for use as a high resistivity, high permeability magnetic core to significantly improve the energy consumption of micromachined inductive suspensions. Compared to a similar inductive suspension structure without a core, the electrical current required to obtain a levitation height of 110 μm is 65 mA versus 120 mA. The use of the core brings the operating temperature in ambient air at 27 °C down from 120 °C to 60 °C, the lowest value among all previously reported micromachined inductive suspensions. Beyond this performance improvement, the present contribution demonstrates the feasibility of three-dimensional micromachined inductive suspensions as integrated elements of levitated micromachined systems.