Novel design and fabrication of a micro-centrifuge for biomedical and biochemical applications

In this paper, modeling and simulation of a novel micro-centrifuge for biomedical and biochemical applications is described. The micro-centrifuge that we designed can work not only as a shaker but also as a detector of cell growth, which has great potential applications in bioanalysis. The initial design contains four channels for mixing or collecting of samples by centrifugal force. The rotor, the key component of this device, is actuated using electrostatic force. There are four electrodes on the substrate to actuate the micro-centrifuge rotation around the X-axis (lateral in plane) and the Y-axis (vertical in plane) respectively, and eight pairs of comb drives are used to actuate the micro-centrifuge rotation around the Z-axis (perpendicular to the XY plane). The multiple axis actuation design makes it very flexible to control the micro-centrifuge. Because of its small feature size, the cost of the reagent used for the micro-centrifuge will be greatly reduced. An array of micro-centrifuges will be designed to achieve a fast cycling time. A Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been completed to analyze the static and dynamic performance of the micro-centrifuge, such as the natural frequencies, tilt angle, and driving voltage. A novel fabrication process using SOI technology has been proposed which is now being developed.