Inkjet printed micropump actuator based on piezoelectric polymers: Device performance and morphology studies

All inkjet printed piezoelectric actuators based on poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) for applications as pump actuators in microfluidic lab-on-a-chip systems (LOC) are manufactured and investigated in terms of their morphology and actuator performance. Furthermore, a pump demonstrator with an all-printed P(VDF-TrFE) actuator is characterized here for the first time. The actuators are manufactured in a fully additive and flexible way by successive inkjet printing of a P(VDF-TrFE) film sandwiched between two silver electrodes on a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. Different from most current micropumps where actuator elements are fabricated separately, no additional joining step is required in the manufacturing approach employed here. Actuator performance is investigated by measurements of piezoelectric d31 coefficients as well as remanent polarization Prem for different thermal treatments of the as-printed P(VDF-TrFE) films. A strong dependence of the device performance on the annealing temperature is found with maximum values for d31 and Prem of approximately 10 pm V-1 and 5.8 ?C cm-2, respectively. Morphology investigations of the printed films by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) indicate an increased degree of crystallinity of the piezoelectric ?-phase for samples annealed at temperatures above 110 °C, which coincides with improved device performance. A basic pumping function with pump rates of up to 130 ?L min-1 is demonstrated, which is promising for future applications in LOC. Furthermore, the process chain and characterization presented here can be employed to design and manufacture also other P(VDF-TrFE)-based devices and allows the combination with additional printed on-chip functionalities in future LOC.