| This dissertation discusses the design, working principles, static & dynamic analysis and simulation, mechanics of material, applied MEMS technology, micro-fabrication, and experimental testing of two types of micro-transducers: micro-power relay and micro-accelerometer.; Several possible design concepts were proposed, and the advantages and disadvantages of electrostatic working principles were also discussed. Transducers presented in this research used electrostatic force as a driving force in the micro-relay and capacitance as a sensing parameter in the micro-accelerometer. There was an analogy between the micro-relay and the micro-accelerometer in their theoretical approach and fabrication processes.; The proposed micro-transducers (micro-relay and micro-accelerometer) were fabricated using UV lithograph of SU-8 & SPR and UV-LIGA process. The advantages and disadvantages of these processes were discussed. The micro-relays fabricated by UV-LIGA technology had the following advantages compared with other reported relays: fast switching speed, high power capacity, high off-resistance, lower on-resistance, low power consumption, and low heat generation.; The polymer-based micro-accelerometers were designed and fabricated. Instead of applying SU-8 only as a photo resist, cured SU-8 was used as the primary structural material in fabricating the micro-accelerometers. The great flexibility in size and aspect ratio of cured SU-8 made it feasible to produce highly sensitive accelerometers.; The prototype micro-relays and micro-accelerometers were tested for the dynamic characteristics and power capacity. The experimental results in micro-relays had confirmed that reasonably large current capacity and fast response speed was able to be achieved using electromagnetic actuation and the multilayer UV-LIGA fabrication process. |
