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Light driven microactuators : design, fabrication, and mathematical modeling

This dissertation is concerned with design, fabrication, and mathematical modeling of three different microactuators driven by light. Compared to electricity, electromagnetic wave is a wireless source of power. A distant light source can be delivered, absorbed, and converted to generate a driving force for a microactuator. The study of light-driven microsystems, still at its early stage, is already expanding the horizon for the research of microsystems. The microactuators of this dissertation include micro-cantilevers driven by pulsed laser, photo-deformable microshells coated with gold nanospheres, and a nano-particles coated micro-turbine driven by visible light. Experimental investigation and theoretical analysis of these microactuators showed interesting results. These microactuators were functioned based on cross-linked, multiple physics phenomenon, such as photo-heating, thermal expansion, photo-chemistry effect, plasomonics enhancement, and thermal convection in rarefied gas. These multiple physics effects dominate the function of a mechanical system, when the system size becomes small. The modeling results of the microactuators suggest that, to simulate a microscale mechanical system accurately, one has to take account the minimum dimension of the system and to consider the validity of a theoretical model. Examples of the building of different microstructures were shown to demonstrate the capacity of a digital-micromirror-device (DMD) based apparatus for three-dimensional, heterogeneous fabrication of polymeric microstructures. / text

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/9697
Date24 January 2011
CreatorsHan, Li-Hsin
Source SetsUniversity of Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Formatelectronic
RightsCopyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.

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