Out-of-Plane Soft Lithography for Soft Pneumatic Microactuator Arrays.
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Authors
De Borre, Eline
Ceyssens, Frederik
Reynaerts, Dominiek
De Volder, Michael
Publication Date
2022-06-15Journal Title
Soft Robot
ISSN
2169-5172
Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert Inc
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Milana, E., Gorissen, B., De Borre, E., Ceyssens, F., Reynaerts, D., & De Volder, M. (2022). Out-of-Plane Soft Lithography for Soft Pneumatic Microactuator Arrays.. Soft Robot https://doi.org/10.1089/soro.2021.0106
Abstract
Elastic pneumatic actuators are fueling new devices and applications in soft robotics. Actuator miniaturization is critical to enable soft microsystems for applications in microfluidics and micromanipulation. This work proposes a fabrication technique to make out-of-plane bending microactuators entirely by soft lithography. The only bonding step required is to seal the embedded fluidic channels, assuring the structural integrity of the microactuators. The process consists of fabricating two SU8 mold halves using different lithographic layers. Polydimethilsiloxane is poured on the bottom mold, which is subsequently aligned and assembled with the top mold. The process allows for out-of-plane actuators with a diameter of 300 μm and for fabricating arrays of up to 36 actuators that are row addressable. These active micropillars have an aspect ratio of 1:1.5 and, when pressurized at 1 bar, show a bending angle of ∼30°.
Sponsorship
FWO - Belgium
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/soro.2021.0106
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/335464
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