Nanoporous carbide-derived carbon based actuators modified with gold foil: Prospect for fast response and low voltage applications

Carbide-derived nanoporous carbon (CDC) based polymeric actuators have been designed and fabricated in combination with gold foil. The gold-foil-modified actuators exhibited high frequency response and required remarkably low operating voltage (as low as +/- 0.25 V). Hot-pressed additional gold layer (thickness 100 nm) ensures better conductivity of polymer supported CDC electrodes, while maintaining the elasticity of actuator. Electrochemical impedance measurements confirmed that relaxation time constant of gold-foil-modified actuator decreased more than one order of magnitude, thus allowing faster charge/discharge cycles. Gold-foil-modified actuators obtained the strain level of 2.2% when rectangular voltage +/- 2 V was applied with frequency 0.5 Hz. However, frequency dependent actuation analyses revealed back-relaxation effect of gold-foil-modified actuators below 0.1 Hz. In case of uncovered CDC actuators aforementioned effect was not observed. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.