TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter focuses on microhinges and microcantilevers, specifically on determining their lumped-parameter stiffness and inertia properties to enable calculation of the corresponding resonant frequencies. The material presented here builds upon the developments of Chap. 2 as complex-shaped microhinges and microcantilevers can be fabricated by combining the basic shapes introduced in Chap. 2.
Microhinges are elastic regions of monolithically built MEMS that connect rigid parts and enable relative motions between these parts by either bending or torsion elastic deformation. A microhinge, which is connected to the substrate (ground) at one end and to a rigid body (mass) at the other end, is illustrated in Fig. 3.1
From a modeling viewpoint, hinges in the lumped-parameter domain are considered as fixed-free members. Hinges in monolithic architectures have been proposed for macro-scale applications in various configurations such as right circular (Paros and Weisbord [1]) elliptical (Smith et al. [2]), or corner-filleted (Lobontiu et al. [3]). Other configurations including parabolic and hyperbolic, with two or multiple sensitive axes, have been studied by Lobontiu [4] from a compliance standpoint, whereas Lobontiu and Garcia [5] more recently provided the main elastic properties of a few hinge designs that can be implemented in MEMS applications.
Microcantilevers are physically fixed-free members, as shown in Fig. 3.2. The microcantilevers are employed in atomic force microscopy (AFM) for sub-Angstrom resolution reading and writing, as well as in micro- and nanotransduction applications such as detection of very small...
