Capacitance estimate for electrostatically actuated narrow microbeams

A novel estimate for the line-to-ground capacitance that accurately predicts the pull-in instability parameters for narrow electrostatically actuated microbeams is proposed. Parameters in the proposed formula are obtained by least square fitting data from a fully converged numerical solution with the method of moments. For a narrow microbeam, it is shown that the new formula significantly improves upon classical formulas that neglect fringing field effects due to the finite thickness of the microbeam cross-section