Some singular equations modeling MEMS

Abstract

In the past fifteen years mathematical models for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have been the subject of several studies, in particular due to the interesting qualitative properties they feature. Still most research is devoted to an illustrative, but simplified model which is deduced from a more complex model when the aspect ratio of the device vanishes, the so-called vanishing (or small) aspect ratio model. The analysis of the aforementioned complex model involving a moving boundary has started only recently and an outlook of the results obtained so far in this direction is provided in this survey.