Conductive silicone based MEMS sensor and actuator

In this paper, we have demonstrated the fabrication and preliminary characterization of SU-8 patterned conductive silicone polymer MEMS sensor and actuator; in the form of a suspended cross-beam accelerometer and an electrostatic fluidic valve. By integrating our recently developed silicone/carbon black composite patterning technique with surface and bulk micromachining technologies, we have exploited the material properties of conductive silicone polymers for active/passive MEMS devices. The cross-beam dimensions of the accelerometer are 7mm × 400μm × 25μm with a 500μm × 500μm × 250μm silicon proof mass at the center. Various sizes of the silicone valves (2 electrodes) and pumps (3 electrodes) were fabricated, with the smallest design for the pump measuring 600μm × 3mm × 35μm. Further size reduction to yield pumps and valves in the order of a hundred micron is possible with our developed fabrication technique.