Micropatternable Multifunctional Nanocomposite Polymers for Flexible Soft NEMS and MEMS Applications

This paper describes the fabrication, micro-machining, and characterization of novel polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based multifunctional nanocomposite polymers for flexible M- (micro-) and N-(nano) EMS (electromechanical systems). We discuss and define a general fabrication and micropatterning process for polymeric nanocomposites which can be electrically conductive, magnetic, or both in nature, and combined with non-doped polymer substrates. These nanocomposite polymers allow the manufacture of flexible PDMS-based active microfluidics and MEMS devices. Two different processes were developed to fabricate nanocomposite polymers using PDMS as a matrix material. These processes mainly differ in the method used to uniformly disperse the nanoparticles: process 1 employed shear mixing, while process 2 used ultrasonic mixing. Two different nanocomposites are specifically demonstrated: 1) carbon-nanotube doped PDMS, and 2) NdFeB doped PDMS. We also present a novel low cost, large scale, hybrid micro-molding technique on 12 '' x 24 '' or larger PMMA micromolds, allowing us to batch fabricate very large numbers of micromolded devices.