Magnetic and mechanical properties of micromachined strontium ferrite/polyimide composites

In this work, strontium ferrite/polyimide composite thin films are fabricated and characterized for micromachining applications. The application of these materials in microelectronics and micromachining dictates the use of different polymers than those previously used for conventional plastic magnets due to fabrication compatibility constraints. The material investigated here consists of magnetically anisotropic strontium ferrite particles suspended in a benzophenone tetracarboxylic dianhydride-oxydianiline/metaphenylene diamine polyimide matrix. Magnetic mechanical, and processability properties of these composites are investigated for a strontium ferrite loading range of 55%-80% by volume. Intrinsic coercivity H_ci residual magnetic flux density B_r and maximum energy product (BH)_max have been determined. For an 80% by-volume concentration loading of ferrite, H_ci of 318 kA/m B_r, approaching 0.3 T, and (BH)_max of 11900 T·A/m have been achieved. Biaxial Young´s modulus and residual stress are determined using a slightly modified in situ load/deflection technique. The biaxial Young´s modulus increases with increasing the magnetic powder loading. The materials have been deposited and patterned using two techniques: (1) screen-printing and (2) spin-casting, followed by photolithography. Finally, a simple magnetic microactuator made with those materials has been fabricated and tested, which demonstrates the usefulness of those materials to micromachining