This paper presents our work on the design, microfabrication and testing of a bidirectional microactuator. The microactuator is electromagnetically driven and it is fully fabricated by surface micromachining on a single silicon wafer with CMOS compatibility. The microactuator consists of three main parts: a Au microcoil, a NiFe membrane with supported legs and a Co-Pt permanent magnet integrated on the membrane. The microactuator has an overall diameter of 1600 mu m and an overall height of 600 Am, including the wafer thickness. Two different membrane designs are presented: double-leg and single-leg designs. A laser Doppler vibrometer is used to test the bidirectional motion of the microactuator. The double-leg design operates at a current in the range of -0.25 to 0.3 A for a displacement in the range of -71 to 28.3 mu m. The single-leg design operates at a current in the range of -0.1 to 0.3 A for a displacement in the range of -108 to 150 mu m. The bidirectional microactuator has shown a large displacement/size ratio, up to 35 mu m mm(-2).
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