Singular elements for electro-mechanical coupling analysis of micro-devices

Abstract

The boundary element method is widely used in the electrostatic analysis of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) in order to determine the capacitance and electrostatic forces. However, the standard elements with low-order polynomial basis functions cannot produce accurate solutions in the vicinity of sharp corners and edges. This paper describes the formulation of new singular elements and their application to electromechanical coupling analysis. These singular elements are specially designed to handle the singularities in the potential gradient at sharp corners and edges, thereby improving the accuracy of the electrostatic analysis of the simulations of MEMS devices. Numerical simulations of micro-beam switches, comb-drive and micro-mirror are conducted, and the effects of using the singular elements are investigated.