Active material micro-actuator arrays fabricated with SU-8 resin

Active materials such as piezoelectric ceramics and shape memory metal alloys commonly actuate active control and intelligent material systems. Commercially available piezoelectric materials exhibit small actuation stroke and shape memory metal alloys have limited bandwidth. The proposed micro-actuator array design and fabrication process increases the actuation stroke of piezoceramic material by a factor of 1.5 for a 2 x 2 array; two active material segments connected in parallel and two in series, and doubles the response time of a 1 x 4 shape memory alloy driven array; four active materials segments connected in series. A high aspect ratio fabrication method incorporating SU-8 resin and conventional lithography is the process that forms the array linkages. The SU-8 resin array structures are 300 μm tall.