Conductive Blended Polymer MEMS Microresonators

Abstract

This paper presents an all-polymer microelectromechanical system technology in which a crosslinker is used to modify the electromechanical properties. The structural material of these microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) structures is a poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/polystyrene sulfonate/polymethyl methacrylate (PEDOT/PSS/PMMA) blended conductive polymer. Microbridge resonators are fabricated using surface micromachining on glass substrates. The electromechanical properties of the polymer microbridges are studied using electrostatic actuation and optical and electrical detection. The resonance frequency of the polymer bridges occurs in the MHz range, with quality factors of the order of 100 when measured in vacuum. Addition of a silane-based crosslinker increases the Young's modulus of the polymer structural material which is reflected in higher resonance frequency, higher pull-in voltage, better long-term stability of the electrical conductivity, and in a decrease in the quality factor of the resonator. The mechanical properties of the polymer resonators are strongly affected by the residual stress because of the low Young's modulus, and by the measurement frequency and the measurement temperature due to the viscoelastic properties of the polymer structural material.[2006-0139]

Recent Developments in Polymer MEMS

“…In addition, a number of other materials are also being used, including liquid crystal polymer (LCP), [47] liquid crystal elastomer (LCE), [48] biodegradable polymers, [49,50] functional hydrogels, [41] Paraffin, [51,52] piezoelectric polymers, fluorocarbon thin films, and conductive polymers. [53,54] The following A number of representative polymers and their MEMS applications are discussed in more detail in the following, to illustrate representative techniques and opportunities. a) PDMS Elastomer Elastomers such as PDMS and polyurethane have been used in microfluidics extensively.…”

Damping mechanisms of single-clamped and prestressed double-clamped resonant polymer microbeams

“…14 Surface loss has been found to be the dominant loss mechanism in d-c amorphous silicon microbeams. 20 The aspect of the understanding of the intrinsic dissipation in polymer microresonators and its influence on the quality factors at atmospheric pressure is the subject of this work. However, further investigations indicated that TED is not the limiting factor of the nanostrings.…”

Fe-B-Nd-Nb metallic glass thin films for microelectromechanical systems

“…For MEMS, there has always been a demand for device performance improvement that has inspired a subsequent search for thin film materials with superior properties. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Recent research has shed light on metallic glass thin films, [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] whose outstanding mechanical properties such as high fracture toughness, high yield strength, and high elastic limits are expected to improve the lifetime and reliability of devices. In addition, flexible formability of the metallic glass thin films under viscous flow conditions in the temperature range between glass transition and crystallization, called the super cooled liquid region (SCLR), enables the creation of structures never constructed using conventional microfabrication processes.…”