Abstract
This paper has presented a low-temperature carbon nanotube (CNT) film fabrication technology and makes demonstration on optical actuation of polymer cantilever with spray-on carbon nanotube films. In this work, we use spraying deposition technology to realize CNT deposition at low temperature on polymer substrate. It has the advantages of low equipment cost, low-temperature process and ease of integration. The uniform of CNT deposited films is an importance in our research. We use oscillation and filtration to improve the CNT distribution. Experimental results of the developed low-temperature CNT fabrication technology have shown good performance to pattern thin CNT films on 4” wafer and polymer cantilever beam. The deposition micro-line of CNT films can be easily controlled by AZ4620 photo resistance patterned and CNT spraying process. And the size of deposition micro-line is between 27.8 μm and 150 μm. We design a micro-temperature sensor on the 4” COC wafer and deposit CNT/SU-8 films on it, then measuring the relationship of times and temperature under 405 nm and 808 nm LD(laser diode) irradiate, and trying to computing the deflection by the theory. We successfully use MEMS technique to make CNT/SU8 cantilever beam and the size is about 1000 μm *100 μm*50 μm. We use 405 nm and 808 nm LD as light source to actuate four disparity-length cantilever beams(10, 5, 2.5, 1 mm). Both 405 nm and 808nm can actuate the beam, but the deflection successfully is larger than 808 nm LD. For the beam of the 10 mm length can be actuated ~2500 μm under 405nm LD having 0.96 mW/mm2 energy, and the equivalent force is about 243 μN. We also use LD with 1 Hz to test the vibration of the beam. It can work with the external force at the same time. When the frequency is greater than 5 Hz, the beams can not work with the external force at the same time. And the amplitude of vibration becomes irregular. In this study, it uses to develop an optical actuator that needs to take carbon nanotube as actuating material, and to combine the MEMS technique with spraying process. Maybe it will be potential to replace the traditional actuator in the future.