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Micromachines
Special Issues
Smart Materials for MEMS Devices
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Smart Materials for MEMS Devices

A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "A：Physics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2023) | Viewed by 6465

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Fabio Botta

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Industrial, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering, University of Rome Tre, 00154 Rome, Italy
Interests: mechanical vibrations; mechanics of plates and shells; smart materials; rotor dynamics; turbomachinery
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The development of smart materials has changed the way we think and design, and it has also allowed us to build new types of structures (smart structures). Such structures do not exhibit permanent features once the fabrication is completed, but they can be modified if the boundary, loading and constraint conditions, etc., change or if the target of the application changes. The opportunities of using smart materials in different fields of engineering has greatly extended the design and research possibilities at both the macro- and micro-scales. In the latter, an increasing number of studies are available, where the peculiarities of smart materials are exploited, such as in biology (micro-surgery, molecule manipulation, etc.), energy harvesting, sensors, actuators, and micro-robots

In this Special Issue, we focus on all micro-devices based on smart materials and all fields of research, from physical and mathematical modelling, to numerical and experimental analysis. Reviews and special topic papers are also welcome.

More specifically, topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • MEMS/NEMS;
  • Smart materials;
  • Physical and mathematical modeling;
  • Energy harvesting;
  • Micro-surgery;
  • Molecule manipulation;
  • Sensors;
  • Actuators;
  • Micro-robots.

Prof. Dr. Fabio Botta
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • MEMS/NEMS
  • smart materials
  • physical and mathematical modeling
  • energy harvesting
  • micro-surgery
  • molecules manipulation
  • sensors
  • actuators
  • micro-robots

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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11 pages, 4032 KiB  
Article
Lateral Extensional Mode Piezoelectric ZnO-on-Nickel RF MEMS Resonators for Back-End-of-Line Integration
by Adnan Zaman, Abdulrahman Alsolami, Mian Wei, Ivan Rivera, Masoud Baghelani and Jing Wang
Micromachines 2023, 14(5), 1089; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi14051089 - 22 May 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1615
Abstract
High motional resistance and incompatibility with post-CMOS fabrication due to thermal budget constraints are imperative issues associated with the back-end-of-line integration of lateral extensional vibrating micromechanical resonators. This paper presents piezoelectric ZnO-on-nickel resonators as a viable means for mitigating both of the issues. [...] Read more.
High motional resistance and incompatibility with post-CMOS fabrication due to thermal budget constraints are imperative issues associated with the back-end-of-line integration of lateral extensional vibrating micromechanical resonators. This paper presents piezoelectric ZnO-on-nickel resonators as a viable means for mitigating both of the issues. Lateral extensional mode resonators equipped with thin-film piezoelectric transducers can exhibit much lower motional impedances than their capacitive counterparts due to piezo-transducers’ higher electromechanical coupling coefficients. Meanwhile, the employment of electroplated nickel as the structural material allows the process temperature to be kept lower than 300 °C, which is low enough for the post-CMOS resonator fabrication. In this work, various geometrical rectangular and square plates resonators are investigated. Moreover, parallel combination of several resonators into a mechanically coupled array was explored as a systematic approach to lower motional resistance from ~1 kΩs to 0.562 kΩs. Higher order modes were investigated for achieving higher resonance frequencies up to 1.57 GHz. Local annealing by Joule heating was also exploited for quality factor improvement after device fabrication by ~2× enhancement and breaking the record of MEMS electroplated nickel resonators in lowering insertion loss to ~10 dB. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Materials for MEMS Devices)
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25 pages, 4246 KiB  
Article
Elasto-Kinematics and Instantaneous Invariants of Compliant Mechanisms Based on Flexure Hinges
by Christian Iandiorio and Pietro Salvini
Micromachines 2023, 14(4), 783; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi14040783 - 30 Mar 2023
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1897
Abstract
The kinematic synthesis of compliant mechanisms based on flexure hinges is not an easy task. A commonly used method is the equivalent rigid model, which involves replacing the flexure hinges with rigid bars connected with lumped hinges using the already known methods of [...] Read more.
The kinematic synthesis of compliant mechanisms based on flexure hinges is not an easy task. A commonly used method is the equivalent rigid model, which involves replacing the flexure hinges with rigid bars connected with lumped hinges using the already known methods of synthesis. This way, albeit simpler, hides some interesting issues. This paper addresses the elasto-kinematics and instantaneous invariants of flexure hinges with a direct approach, making use of a nonlinear model to predict their behaviour. The differential equations that govern the nonlinear geometric response are given in a comprehensive form and are solved for flexure hinges with constant sections. The solution to the nonlinear model is then used to obtain an analytical description of two instantaneous invariants: the centre of instantaneous rotation (c.i.r.) and the inflection circle. The main result is that the c.i.r. evolution, namely the fixed polode, is not conservative but is loading-path dependent. Consequently, all other instantaneous invariants are loading-path dependent, and the property of instantaneous geometric invariants (independent of the motion time law) can no longer be used. This result is analytically and numerically evidenced. In other words, it is shown that a careful kinematic synthesis of compliant mechanisms cannot be addressed by only considering the kinematics as rigid mechanisms, and it is essential to take into consideration the applied loads and their histories. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Materials for MEMS Devices)
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15 pages, 3213 KiB  
Article
A Piezoelectric MEMS Microgripper for Arbitrary XY Trajectory
by Fabio Botta
Micromachines 2022, 13(11), 1888; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13111888 - 1 Nov 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1685
Abstract
In this paper, a piezoelectric microgripper for arbitrary 2D trajectory is proposed. The desired trajectory of the specimen under consideration was obtained by the deformability of a structure consisting of 16 straight beams and 12 C-structures. The mechanical action that deforms the structure [...] Read more.
In this paper, a piezoelectric microgripper for arbitrary 2D trajectory is proposed. The desired trajectory of the specimen under consideration was obtained by the deformability of a structure consisting of 16 straight beams and 12 C-structures. The mechanical action that deforms the structure was obtained by an electrical voltage supplied to piezoelectric plates. In order to verify the proposed model a FEM software (COMSOL) was used and some of the most commonly used trajectories for medical applications, micropositioning, micro-object manipulation, etc., were examined. The results showed that the proposed microgripper was capable of generating any parametrizable trajectory. Parametric studies were also carried out by examining the most relevant parameters highlighting their influence on specimen trajectories. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Materials for MEMS Devices)
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