Conductive surfaces and patterns are at the forefront of electronics research with a need to go smaller and create more intricate electronic designs and devices while still maintaining easy manufacturability. This paper investigates an approach of patterning conductive traces for microsize electrically driven devices with the focus on enabling and patterning complicated geometries. The approach includes the design and fabrication of hydrophilic microstructures along the channels with hydrophobic borders on devices' surfaces. The channels are connected to larger electrodes outside the device. When a conductive solution is applied to the outside electrode area, hydrophilic morphologies stimulate the solution to feed along the channels and fill the predesigned patterns. Therefore, the major objective of this study is to explore different designs of microstructures to increase surface hydrophilicity for liquid electrode patterning for variously oriented surfaces. Due to numerous physical forces, material domains, and interactions involved, experimental approach is selected to study the method of surface electrode micropatterning through wetting. Microstructured surfaces are fabricated using the two-photon polymerization 3D printing technique due to its superior resolution. Analysis of various morphologies is completed, a microsize electromechanical device with selected hydrophilic morphologies is fabricated, patterned with liquid electrode, and tested. The findings in this paper further the development of electrode patterning and help determine which hydrophilic microstructures show superior patterning ability along horizontal and vertical vectors.

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Soft polymer actuators are in increasing demand due to their more fluid like motion and flexibility when actuated than compared with rigid actuators, which makes them valuable in diverse engineering applications. One of the main types of soft polymer actuators is the dielectric elastomer actuator, whose working principle is to apply a voltage potential difference between electrodes to reduce the thickness of the elastomeric material while expanding its area. This paper looks at manufacturing a micro soft polymer dielectric elastomer actuator utilizing two-photon polymerization 3D printing. The actuator contains micro channels that are filled with an electrode by using capillary action. A complex helical geometry is designed, printed, and tested for electrode filling capabilities. Quite a few obstacles are described in this paper including the use of a newly released two-photon polymerization resin which has limited supporting resources, as well as the complex helical geometry having a large compliance that vastly complicates its fabrication, post-processing, handling, electrode filling, electrode integration, and actuation testing. However, these challenges are overcome by using the standard printing recipes currently available for the resins, adding electrode isolation layers, and printing thicker elastomer zones for more structural support. The results found solidify the approach of filling microchannels with electrodes through capillary action and lead to further the focus and creation of multi-functional micro soft actuators.

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