An On-Chip Bistable Structure for Extracting the Impact Fracture Strength of the Microstructure

This paper presents a novel bistable impact structure based on the thermal drive principle. This structure can store energy and release it rapidly. It breaks the limitation of heating and cooling time of typical thermal actuator and can provide the impact pulse force within 4µs. Based on the bistable impact structure, we propose an automated and resettable method that can perform impact test on microstructures for the first time. It can evaluate the impact reliability of MEMS microstructures, and also provides a means to study the dynamic mechanical properties of microscale materials.