the following text the scaling or comparison of a material with respect to a reference material is an integral step in the material selection process in addition scaling also results in a more readable index as illustrated by the following comparisons silicon is chosen as the reference material because of its predominance in lithographic fabrication preliminary candidates for thermoelastic actuation can be selected according to efficiencies and slopes however it is important to note that two materials that have identical u03b4 but differing m u03b5 will output different amounts of work for any constant geometry see comparison 1 below different amounts of heat energy are also required three important design parameters are defined here as heat input work output and volume a design matrix can be constructed by varying each parameter and can then be used to select suitable materials the following comparisons are used to assemble the design matrix the mechanical work and heat input between a material and silicon for a constant beam volume is compared thus comparison 1 calculates the maximum possible relative work and associated relative heat input required due to a direct material substitution details of the comparison for different materials are included in table 3 which shows that cvd ceramics are far superior actuator materials than silicon table 3 is formulated using melting point and table 4 is formulated using oxidation temperature titanium nitride can output 159 3 times more the amount of mechanical work than silicon.