Quasi-Static Pull-in: an Instability in Electrostatic Actuators

We identify a new instability in electrostatic actuators dubbed quasi-static pull-in. We report experimental evidence of the instability and study its characteristics in two types of micro actuators operating in ambient air. We found that the underlying mechanism is a fast-slow dynamic interaction between slowly-varying electrostatic excitation and fast resonator response that instigate large non-resonant oscillatory orbits and eventually disappears in a global Shilnikov bifurcation. Based on these findings, we formulate and present a new taxonomy of pull-in instabilities in electrostatic actuators.