Electrothermal and Electrostatic Actuators for Assembly, Robotics and Micromanipulation Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The increased need for the good handling, positioning, and manipulating of different micro-objects or MEMS/MOEMS components imposes an optimization of the motions of the devices used for such actions. These actions find applications in multiple domains such as bio-medicine, micro-assembly, micro-grippers, micro-robotics, atomic force microscopy, or scanning probe microscopy.

Actuators are parts of a device or machine that support it to achieve physical movements by converting energy, often electrical, air, or hydraulic, into mechanical force. Simply put, it is a component in any machine that enables movement. The motion it produces can be either rotary or linear. Actuators with a precise motion are roughly used in electronics, such as for switch, scanner, projector, tunable capacitor for RF applications, grippers, or mirrors. Electrothermal microactuators function under the principle of resistive heating, meaning heat is produced in conducting arms, which in turn causes expansion and therefore deflection from the normal position. Electrostatic actuation exploits the attractive or a repulsive Coulomb force between electrically charged bodies. A pair of electrodes with a tiny separation can be implemented in various shapes and orientation by the micromachining technique.

In this Special Issue, we aim to highlight some of the recent developments in electrothermal and electrostatic actuators, the integration of them in different MEMS/MOEMS/NEMS devices and sensors, and structural advanced materials used for fabrication and different applications, such as micromanipulations techniques. The realization of actuators with an out-of-plane motion is still a challenging task in the domain of micro-electro-mechanical (optical) systems (MEMS/ MOEMS). The designed micro-actuators can be used in a variety of applications, such as in bio-medicine, micro-robotics, for grippers actuation, in assembling for positioning, and the manipulation of micro-elements (like mirrors, lenses, or bio-elements)in electronics as for switches or RF applications or mirrors.

We invite the submission of research papers and reviews that focus on tethered or untethered actuators used for devices with applications in the manipulation, fabrication, or characterization of different structural materials used. Topics of particular interest include but are not limited to, modeling and simulation, design, fabrication, as well as characterization at small scales and experiments.

Dr. Rodica Voicu
Dr. Jian LU
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Actuators is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• actuators
• electro-thermal
• electrostatic
• MEMS
• design, modeling and simulation of actuators
• material modeling for actuators
• micro/nano manipulation
• fabrication of actuators
• characterization of actuators
• micro robotics
• out-of-plane
• in-plane motion
• actuators for microfluidics