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Design, Fabrication, and Testing of a SOI-MEMS-Based Active Microprobe for Potential Cellular Force Sensing Applications

This paper presents the design, analysis, fabrication, and characterization of an electrostatically driven single-axis active probing device for the applications of cellular force sensing and materials characterization. The active microprobe is actuated by linear comb drivers to generate the motion in the probing direction. Both actuation and sensing comb-drive structures are designed for the probing stage. The sensing comb structures enable us to sense the probe displacement when the device is actuated, which enables applications of force-balanced sensing and provides the capability of closed-loop control towards better accuracy. The designed active probing device is fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate with a 10 μm thick device layer through surface micromachining technologies and deep reactive-ion etching (DRIE) process. The handle layer beneath probe stage is etched away by DRIE process to decrease the film damping between the stage and the handle wafer thus achieving high-quality factor. The fabricated stage provides a motion range of 14 μm at actuation voltage of 140 V. The measured natural frequency of the stage is 1.5 kHz under ambient conditions. A sensitivity of 6 fF/μm has been achieved. The proposed single-axis probe is aimed at sensing cellular force which ranges from a few nano-Newton to μN and micromanipulation applications.