Flemion-based actuator for mechanically controlled microwave switch

Abstract

A microwave switch based on EAP presents several advantages. A switch based on Flemion is studied. Flemion a perfluorinated carboxylic acid membrane shows improved performance as actuator material compared with Nafion (perfluorinated sulfonic acid). Flemion has a higher ion exchange capacity and good mechanical strength. In order to get a good Flemion actuator, highly conductive soft gold electrodes with large fractal structure have to be deposited on the membrane. The impregnation reduction technique used for plating requires exchange of a gold complex and reduction by gradual sodium sulfite additions. K + shows the highest exchange ratio with the gold complex and reducing bath temperatures around 60°C with enough reducing agent present are shown to promote the growth of a gold fractal structure. The resulting material shows an actuation displacement with no relaxation, a key feature for switch applications. A simple mechanical switch based on a flemion actuator is prepared and tested as a microwave switch.

Fabrication of ionic polymer-metal actuator of microcantilever type

“…When the rectangular voltage of 2.0[V] was applied to IPMC (see Fig.12(a)), the displacement drifted to one direction with vibrating. The same tendency (drift) of the displacement was reported in other IPMC using ionic liquids [9]. However, the detailed mechanism is not clean.…”

“…The film resistance of the Au electrode before and after the swelling of Nafion layer with water, was measured by four-terminal method. In order to make IPMC which can be driven in the air, IPMCs were immersed in a mixture of water and an ionic (liquid1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (BMI-BF 4 )) to incorporate the ionic liquid into the IPMC [9][10]. Fig.5 shows the relation between the thickness of the gold layer and its film resistance before the removal of photoresist.…”

Applications

“…Actuators based on Flemion carboxylic ionomer do not exhibit curvature reversal on current interruption [54]. They will then curve in the opposite direction (toward the cathode) and eventually return to close to their original shape.…”

Numerical study on 3D composite morphing actuators

“…Using a similar derivation approach to that of Dunsch and Breguet 8 the tip displacement based on an applied eigenstrain ( in ) can be expressed by equation (3). The thickness of the active zone(layer) was fixed as 10μm, based on the paper of Jung et al 6 .…”