Abstract
This thesis proposes the design method for fully compliant bistable micro mechanisms. This class of mechanisms is constructed completely by elastic hinges and has two stationary locations. Therefore, it may possess the advantages of both the compliant mechanism and the bistable device because it can avoid the drawbacks caused by rigid joints and require no external power to keep it in position except switching between the two stable positions. Under the constraint of overstress resulted failure, the total strain energy of the bistable compliant mechanism is derived by summing up the strain energy stored in each elastic member.In addition, this thesis also proposes several applications that contain bistable compliant micro mechanisms, including a micro relay, a bistable feeding device and an improved optical switch. Among them, the micro relay is designed for conducting the current; the bistable feeding device is composed of a bistable compliant mechanism and an electrostatic actuator named SDA (Scratch drive actuator) through the cooperation with my partner, C. C. Huang; and the optical switch, designed for the optical networks, integrates with the bistable compliant micro mechanism with the structure proposed by Lin et. al.The micro devices are implemented by a surface-micromachining process with three layers of polysilicon, known as MUMPsTM. In addition, an experimental setup is constructed to test the individual micro devices in order to demonstrate the ideas proposed in this research. From the experimental results, the compliant bistable micro mechanism and the bistable feeding device operate similarly as expected.