ECF Micropump-Integrated Micro Hand by MEMS Technology

On purpose to realize a novel flexible micro-hand for biological and medical applications, this paper presents a major step forward in this direction by directly integrating micropumps into eccentric tube type micro-fingers driven by the ECF (Electro-Conjugate Fluid) jet. ECF is a functional fluid which can generate the strong jet by applying high DC voltage between the electrodes. The ECF eccentric tube type micro-hand (ECF-ETMH) comprises three elastic PDMS micro-fingers with eccentric void and their corresponding MEMS-fabricated ECF micropumps. Because of the geometrical asymmetry created by an eccentric void in a cylindrical elastic body, this micro-finger acts bending motion upon the pressurization of the eccentric void by the ECF jet. Each ECF micropump has 41 pairs of a triangular prism and slit electrodes (TPSEs) that are designed to generate maximum pressures of 300kPa at the applied voltage of 3.5kV. We successfully fabricated eccentric tube type micro-fingers (ETMF) by high aspect ratio micromolding. Although we could not succeed in integrating the ECF micropumps and ETMFs due to the leakage, we experimentally proved the feasibility of this micro-hand system by investigating the characteristics of them separately.