Electrostatically driving actuators between

Motion is generated by electrostatic attraction force between electrically charged surfaces. Examples of electrostatic MEMS actuators are in-plane comb drives (Fig. la) and out-of-plane parallel plate actuators (Fig. lb) [4]. Both types of actuators require large driving voltages... 

Electrostatic actuators are commonly used in MEMS devices because they scale well in the micro domain, use very little power, and are straightforward to fabricate in a number of different processes. Two common forms are parallel plate actuators and comb-drive actuators. The parallel plate actuator is a parallel plate capacitor with one of the plates released so that it is able to move, as shown in Figure 3.1. The relationship between the capacitance C, voltage V, and charge Q for a parallel plate capacitor is given by... 

---