Thermal bimorphs are extensively used in engineering applications with its ability to generate large forces and deflections. A new pore-structured thermal microactuator design, which incorporates the thermal bimorph concept, is proposed to trap single biological cells for sensing and imaging. This can act as an alternative to the existing methods as it possesses the potential to trap the cells without any repercussions while being relatively low cost and easy to operate. In this study, the thermal microactuator design is investigated and analysed using finite element analysis (FEA) where the deflection was determined to be dependent on the effective length and the coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE). Upon thermal loading, the internal stresses were found to be tunable by employing several geometric modifications. With determined parameters, prototypes of the design were fabricated on silicon nitride (Si3N4) membrane with Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) coating.
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