Comparative study of perforated microcantilevers for MEMS applications

In this paper, the circular, square and hexagonal perforations of size 2.5 µm-14.5 µm are considered and compared with a simple rectangular beam. Structural and coupled structural-electrostatic analyses are performed using COMSOL Metaphysics to obtain the results. As the perforation size increases, both resonance frequency and static deflection of the beam increase and the pull-in voltage decrease. Among all the proposed designs, design with hexagonal perforation has the highest resonance frequency of 34.5 kHz. Static deflection is found to be greater in beams with circular perforations. Beam with square perforations has the lowest pull-in voltage of 3.84 V.