Micromachined inductive contactless suspension: Technology and modeling

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have been used in an ever-increasing number of applications, on the one hand, replacing traditional sensors based on the bulk technologies; and on the other hand, applied principally to new applications, for instance, in healthcare, energy harvesting, active safety systems, computer hard drives, mobile devices, and adaptive optics. One of the main features of MEMS technology is miniaturization, which offers a multitude of advantages. However, as a result of shrinking size, the sensitivity of a microsensor is dramatically decreased due to the scaling effect and the domination of friction over inertial forces in the microworld. In turn, these facts also limit the performance of a micro-actuator. An indisputable solution is levitation, which eliminates completely 102physical attachment and, consequently reduces drastically mechanical friction. In particular, a micromachined inductive contactless suspension as a promising technology, to realize mentioned above scenario, is discussed in this chapter.