Basic Study on Functional Fluid Pump

This study contributes to the development of a micro-pump in micro-fabricated systems. Our micro-pump uses the dielectrophoresis of a liquid to eliminate vibration-noise, and it requires little or no maintenance. Three-phase alternating currents are used as rotation electric fields to rotate the liquid crystal using the dielectrophoresis property. The pump has spiral flow channel and was designed based on the rotation mechanism of the liquid crystal by using the three-phase alternating currents. The relation between the maximum pressure and the shape of the flow channel in the pump was investigated for various electric fields. Furthermore, pressure-flow rate characteristics of the pump were measured. The maximum pressure increased when we used a liquid crystal with a high dielectric constant for the constant voltage. We developed a micro-pump using the dielectrophoresis of liquid crystals. The size of our pump can be decreased by further research.