Polyurethane unimorph bender microfabricated with Pressure Assisted Microsyringe (PAM) for biomedical applications

This paper describes a new microfabrication technique for bender-type electromechanical actuators made of an elastomeric electroactive polymer. The technique is based on a computer-controlled deposition of the active material with a microsyringe. The paper describes the developed microfabrication system and proposes a simple deposition model. The realization of solid-state unimorph bender actuators made of polyurethane as electrolyte and a mixture of carbon black and polyurethane as electrodes is presented. Prototype actuators fabricated both with the new technique were driven with electrical field of 100 V/μm and showed bending angles higher than 30°. In this way, we have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate polyurethane based microactuators using a polyurethane/carbon black composite such as device. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.