A Short Review on Fabrication Methods of Micro-Cantilever for Ionic Electroactive Polymer Sensors/Actuators

Ghajar, M. H.; Mousavi, M.; Burzhuev, S.; Irannejad, M.; Yavuz2, M.; Abdel-Rahman, E.

A Short Review on Fabrication Methods of Micro-Cantilever for Ionic Electroactive Polymer Sensors/Actuators

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

M. H. Ghajar ¹

M. Mousavi ¹

S. Burzhuev ²

M. Irannejad ²

M. Yavuz2 ²

E. Abdel-Rahman ²

¹ Departement of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

² Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada.

Abstract

Micro-electroactive polymers have wide applications from industry to healthcare. Artificial muscles, microvalves, microswitches, haptic sensing, blood pressure and pulse monitoring are some potential applications for micro-electroactive polymers. The most advantage of micro-electroactive polymers as sensors and actuators is bio-compatibility and low power threshold for large deformations. In this short review, some applicable fabrication methods of micro-electroactive polymer cantilever are reviewed. Furthermore, a novel method based on standard micro fabrication techniques is designed and discussed in details which presents a conceptual design of a micro-electroactive polymer cantilever on a polymeric anchor located on a silicon substrate for future works.

Keywords

Micro fabrication

Electroactive polymer

Cantilever