HNS 센서 응용을 위한 IPMC를 이용한 멤브레인형 마이크로 액추에이터 개발

Abstract

IPMC(Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite) is a highly sensitive actuator that shows a large deformation in presence of low applied voltage. IPMC can be generally 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 IPMC membrane, the micro-pump structure and IPMC membrane are fabricated separately and later assembled, resulting in a very inefficient process. Therefore, the fabrication of IPMC membrane and the micro-pump structure on a single wafer without the need of assembly was tried. The silicon wafer was partially etched to hold liquid Nafion to be casted and a 60-㎛ thick IPMC membrane was realized. IPMC membranes with various size were fabricated by casting and they showed 4-20㎛ displacements for 4㎜×4㎜ , 6㎜× 6㎜, 8㎜×8㎜ membranes at the applied voltage raging from 2Vp-p to 5Vp-p. The displacement of the fabricated IPMC membranes is proportional to the membrane area and applied voltage.