A MEMS nanopositioner with thermal actuator and on-chip thermal sensor

This paper describes the design of a micromachined nanopositioner with electrothermal actuation and sensing capabilities in a single silicon chip. The positioner has a dynamic range of 14.4 μm with a differential sensing scheme. At 6-V dc bias voltage, the position sensors have a power consumption of 120 mW, and a sensitivity of 0.27 mV/nm. The open-loop bandwidth is 101 Hz and the phase delay from 1 Hz to 51.2 kHz is 169°. The on-chip displacement sensing enables a feedback control capability.