Lecture
This lecture covers the scaling laws and applications of electrostatics in Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS). Topics include parallel plate capacitors, actuators, zipping actuators, comb drives, capacitance sensing, voltage fluctuations, and capacitive sensing in MEMS. The lecture also discusses the challenges and solutions in designing electrostatic devices, such as pull-in phenomena, effective spring constants, and the influence of electric fields. Various examples of electrostatic actuators, such as micro-relays, tunable gratings, and MEMS gyroscopes, are presented to illustrate the practical implementations of electrostatics in MEMS technology.