Jason Vaughn Clark, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and mechanical engineering created a tiny motorized positioning device that has twice the dexterity of similar devices being developed for applications that include biological sensors and more compact, powerful computer hard drives. The device, called a monolithic comb drive, might be used as a "nanoscale manipulator" that precisely moves or senses movement and forces. The devices also can be used in watery environments for probing biological molecules.The advantage of this device is that it can shrink the size of the overall sensor instrument. The sensors generally detect objects using two different componenets. A probe is moved while at the same time the platform holding the specimen is positioned. The new technology would replace both components with a single one - THE MONOLITHIC COMB DRIVE.
The researchers expected the sensors to work faster and at higher resolution. Also due to the single component they are small enough to fit on a microchip.The higher resolution might be used to design future computer hard drives capable of high-density data storage and retrieval. It could possibly be used to fabricate or assemble miniature micro and nanoscale machines.
Structure wise, the new monolithic device has a single structure with two perpendicular comb drives. It is so called because it contains comb drive components that are not mechanically and electrically separate. Conventional comb drives are structurally decoupled to keep opposite charges separated. Along with that there are certain advantages of comb drive overother technologies. In contrast to piezoelectric actuators that typically deflect, or move, a fraction of a micrometer, comb drives can deflect tens to hundreds of micrometers. And unlike conventional comb drives, which only move in one direction, new device can move in two directions - left to right, forward and backward - an advance that could reallyopen up the door for many applications.
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