| Title |
A Study on the Fabrication of a Membrane Type Micro=Actuator Using IPMC(Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite) for Micro-Pump Application |
| Keywords |
IPMC(Ionic Polymer Metal Composite) ; MEMS ; Membrane ; Casting ; Micro-pump ; Actuator ; Nafion |
| Abstract |
IPMC(Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite) is a highly sensitive actuator that shows a large deformation in presence of low applied voltage. Generally, IPMC can be fabricated by electroless plating of platinum on both sides of a Nafion (perfluorosulfonic acid) film. When a commercial Nafion film is used as a base structure of the IPMC membrane, the micro-pump structure and the IPMC membrane are fabricated separately and then later assembled, which makes the fabrication inefficient. Therefore, fabrication of an IPMC membrane and the micro-pump structure on a single wafer without the need of assembly have been developed. The silicon wafer was partially etched to hold liquid Nafion to be casted and a 60-μ{ textrm} m thick IPMC membrane was realized. IPMC membranes with various size were fabricated by casting and they showed 4-2μ{ textrm} m displacements from 4mm×4mm , 6mm×6mm, 8mm×8mm membranes at the applied voltage ranging from 2Vp-p to 5Vp-p at 0.5Hz. The displacement of the fabricated IPMC membranes is fairly proportional to the membrane area and the applied voltage. |