Micro magnetic bearings

Abstract

A micro magnetic actuator is any device based on magnetic effects to achieve mechanical actuation. The meaning of the word micro depends very much on context. Let us call such an actuator micro when the magnetic part of the actuator proper, i.e. without electronics, is confined to sizes typically measured in micrometers and up to a maximum of about one or two centimeter in overall size. This includes mm and sub-mm actuators and MEMs devices (definition see below) based on magnetic effects. Larger actuators are treated in other chapters. After an introduction to downscaling of magnetic actuators, this chapter will concentrate on micro magnetic bearings. There are, up to now, only very few examples of realizations: all are purely experimental systems, but there is a number of potential applications to be explored once the basic issues will have been resolved. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.