Packaged strain actuator

US6781285B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• Cymer, LLC · US

Inventors

• Kenneth B. Lazarus · Boston, US
• Mark Lundstrom · Cambridge, US
• Jeffrey W. Moore · Appleton, US
• Edward F. Crawley · Cambridge, US
• Farla M. Russo · Brookline, US
• Shoko Yoshikawa · Cambridge, US
• Eric Fitch · Arlington, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Apr 27, 1999
• Grant date: Aug 24, 2004
• Expiry date: Apr 27, 2019

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H10N30/87
• WIPO field: Control
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A modular actuator assembly includes one or more plates or elements of electro-active material bonded to an electroded sheet, preferably by a structural polymer to form a card. The card is sealed, and may itself constitute a practical device, such as a vane, shaker, stirrer, lever, pusher or sonicator for direct contact with a solid or immersion in a fluid, or may be bonded by a stiff adhesive to make a surface-to-surface mechanical coupling with a solid workpiece, device, substrate machine or sample. The structural polymer provides a bending stiffness such that the thin plate does not deform to its breaking point, and a mechanical stiffness such that shear forces are efficiently coupled from the plate to the workpiece. In further embodiments, the card may include active circuit elements for switching, powering or processing signals, and/or passive circuit elements for filtering, matching or damping signals, so that few or no connections to outside circuitry are required. The actuator assembly can be manufactured in quantity, to provide a versatile actuator with uniform mechanical and actuation characteristics, that introduces negligible mass loading to the workpiece. The cards the…