Frequency dependent dielectric and mechanical behavior of elastomers for actuator applications

Molberg, Martin; Leterrier, Y.; Plummer, C. J. G.; Walder, Christian; Löwe, Christiane; Opris, Dorina M.; Nüesch, Frank; Bauer, Siegfried; Månson, Jan‐Anders E.

doi:10.1063/1.3211957

Cited by 114 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…With 1 kHz of useable bandwidth for full-amplitude signals, the silicone-based tuneable lens presented here is more than 3 orders of magnitude faster than devices made with acrylic elastomer. constantly and rapidly decreasing strain amplitude for frequencies ranging from 10 -3 Hz to 1 Hz, [18] an observation also reported by Keplinger et al between 0.04…”

Section: Frequency Responsesupporting

confidence: 67%

“…[19] The acrylic elastomer VHB has a very high mechanical loss tangent, increasing from 0.3 to almost 1 in the 1 mHz to 100 Hz frequency range. [18] Molberg et al observed that although at very low frequencies acrylic elastomerbased devices lead to larger strains compared to silicone devices, the strain of their silicone actuators was larger than acrylic elastomer (VHB) actuators for frequencies above 0.1Hz.…”

Section: Frequency Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

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Ultrafast All‐Polymer Electrically Tunable Silicone Lenses

Maffli

Rosset

Ghilardi

et al. 2015

Adv Funct Materials

237

214

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Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) are smart lightweight flexible materials integrating actuation, sensing, and structural functions. The field of DEAs has been progressing rapidly, with actuation strains of over 300% reported, and many application concepts demonstrated. However many DEAs are slow, exhibit large viscoelastic drift, and have short lifetimes, due principally to the use of acrylic elastomer membranes and carbon grease electrodes applied by hand. We present here a DEA-driven tuneable lens, the world's fastest capable of holding a stable focal length. By using low-loss silicone elastomers rather than acrylics, we obtain a settling time shorter than 175 μs for a 20% change in focal length. The silicone-based lenses show a bandwidth 3 orders of magnitude higher compared to lenses of the same geometry fabricated from the acrylic elastomer. Our stretchable electrodes, a carbon black and silicone composite, are precisely patterned by pad-printing and subsequently cross-linked, enabling strong adhesion to the elastomer and excellent resistance to abrasion. The lenses operated for over 400 million cycles without degradation, and showed no change after more than two years of storage. This lens demonstrates the unmatched combination of strain, speed and stability that DEAs can achieve, paving the way for complex fast soft machines.

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Section: Frequency Responsesupporting

confidence: 67%

Section: Frequency Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrafast All‐Polymer Electrically Tunable Silicone Lenses

Maffli

Rosset

Ghilardi

et al. 2015

Adv Funct Materials

237

214

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…But using a PDMS stamp to pattern carbon powders on a PDMS membrane is more difficult as the stamp and film have the same surface energies. Silicone films are increasingly preferred to acrylic elastomer films since they have negligible viscoelastic properties and stable dynamic behavior, and longer lifetime [10]. Pimpin et al have shown buckling mode microactuators using patterned concentric circle metal electrodes on silicone elastomers [11], but these electrodes still have a significant impact on the stiffness of the polymer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An array of 100μm×100μm dielectric elastomer actuators with 80% strain for tissue engineering applications

Akbari

Shea

2012

Sensors and Actuators A: Physical

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a b s t r a c tBiological cells modulate their behavior, express genes, proliferate or differentiate in response to mechanical strains ranging from 1% to 20%. There currently exists no technique to apply strain to many targeted individual cells in a larger culture in order to perform parallelized high throughput testing. Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are compliant devices capable of generating large percentage strains with sub-second response time, ideally suited by their compliance for cell manipulation. We report an array of 100 m × 100 m DEAs reaching up to 80% in-plane strain at an electric field of 240 V/m. The miniaturized DEAs are made by patterning 100 m wide compliant ion-implanted gold electrodes on both sides of a 30 m thick polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane. We report the important effect of uniaxial prestretch of the membrane on the microactuators' performance; the largest strain is achieved by prestretching uniaxially by 175%. Each actuator is intended to have a single cell adhered to it in order to periodically stretch the cells to study the effect of mechanical stimulation on its biochemical responses. To avoid short-circuiting all the top electrodes by the conductive saline cell growth medium, a 20 m thick biocompatible PDMS layer is bonded on the actuators. In this configuration, 37% strain is achieved at 3.6 kV with sub-second response. This device can be used as a high throughput single cell stretcher to apply relevant biological periodic strains to individual cells in a single experiment.

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“…However, the actuation strain of VHB decreases rapidly with frequency because of its high viscous losses, and at driving frequencies above 1 Hz, the actuation strain of silicone-based actuators exceeds that of VHB-based actuators. 9 Consequently, except for demonstrating giant actuation strain at low frequencies, silicone-based actuators exhibit better performance, especially regarding stability in time, and we therefore systematically use silicone elastomers for our DEAs.…”

Section: Elastomer Membranesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards fast, reliable, and manufacturable DEAs: miniaturized motor and Rupert the rolling robot

Rosset

Shea

2015

SPIE Proceedings

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Dielectric elastomer transducers (DETs) are known for their large strains, low mass and high compliance, making them very attractive for a broad range of applications, from soft robotics to tuneable optics, or energy harvesting. However, 15 years after the first major paper in the field, commercial applications of the technology are still scarce, owing to high driving voltages, short lifetimes, slow response speed, viscoelastic drift, and no optimal solution for the compliant electrodes. At the EPFL's Microsystems for Space Technologies laboratory, we have been working on the miniaturization and manufacturability of DETs for the past 10 years. In the frame of this talk, we present our fabrication processes for high quality thin-film silicone membranes, and for patterning compliant electrodes on the sub mm-scale. We use either implantation of gold nano-clusters through a mask, or pad-printing of conductive rubber to precisely shape the electrodes on the dielectric membrane. Our electrodes are compliant, time stable and present strong adhesion to the membrane. The combination of low mechanicalloss elastomers with robust and precisely-defined electrodes allows for the fabrication of very fast actuators that exhibit a long lifetime. We present di↵erent applications of our DET fabrication process, such as a soft tuneable lens with a settling time smaller than 175 microseconds, a motor spinning at 1500 rpm, and a self-commutating rolling robot.

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Frequency dependent dielectric and mechanical behavior of elastomers for actuator applications

Cited by 114 publications

References 17 publications

Ultrafast All‐Polymer Electrically Tunable Silicone Lenses

Ultrafast All‐Polymer Electrically Tunable Silicone Lenses

An array of 100μm×100μm dielectric elastomer actuators with 80% strain for tissue engineering applications

Towards fast, reliable, and manufacturable DEAs: miniaturized motor and Rupert the rolling robot

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