| Among several driving principles for microactuators, magnetic force has been considered as one of the promising driving principles in the micro scale which can overcome the potential drawbacks caused by other driving principles. To realize this driving principle in the micro scale, three major research areas (described below) have been explored. In these areas, several new micromachined components such as integrated planar inductors, micropower devices, and magnetic microactuators have been proposed, designed, and realized in this work.; First, the feasibility and utility of integrated magnetic microcomponents is examined in terms of scaling, geometry, and material issues. From this evaluation, it is predicted that the magnetic actuators in the micro scale have a high feasibility and potential by adopting optimized geometries, processing techniques, and materials.; Second, based on the above evaluation, three new micromachined inductive components (spiral-type, bar-type, meander-type) are proposed, designed, fabricated, and tested by adopting new micromachining techniques. These inductive components serve as magnetic flux generators in a variety of micromagnetic device applications.; Third, a fully integrated magnetic microactuator with a cantilever beam, a planar variable-reluctance magnetic micromotor, and a micromagnetic dc/dc converter are realized by using the realized inductive components and the micromachining techniques developed in this thesis. Finally, a design criterion for the optimized design of magnetic microactuators is found from energy considerations and applied to the design of actual magnetic microactuators. |
