EVALUATION OF A CURVED ELECTRODE ELECTROSTATIC ACTUATOR DYNAMICS IN VISCOUS DIELECTRIC MEDIA

We present an experimental investigation of the dynamics of a curved electrode actuator in viscous media. The actuator is configured in a clamped-clamped beam architecture. We demonstrate that the actuator achieves large displacements on the order of a biological cell diameter (1-20 µm) and generates large forces (1-50 µN) at low actuation voltages (8 V) over 1-3000 Hz frequency range in viscous environments where the damping is six orders of magnitude larger than in air. This study highlights the actuator's ability to operate in a viscous environment, thus making our actuator suitable for probing biological cells suspended in aqueous media.