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A Model of Electric Field Assisted Capillarity for the Fabrication of Hollow Microstructures

C. Tonry[1], M. K. Patel[1], C. Bailey[1], M. P.Y. Desmuliez[2], W. Yu[3]
[1]Computational Mechanics and Reliability Group (CMRG), School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, University of Greenwich, London, United Kingdom
[2]Microsystems Engineering Centre (MISCEC, School of Engineering & Physical Sciences, Heriot Watt University, Earl Mountbatten Building, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
[3]State Key Laboratory of Applied Optics, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin, China
Publié en 2012

Electric Field Assisted Capillarity (EFAC) is a novel technique for the fabrication of hollow polymer microstructures. It has advantages over current methods as it is a single step process. Hollow microstructures have many uses in industry from microchannels and microcapsules in BioMEMS to fibre-optical waveguides. It makes use of the dielectric properties of polymers combined with a heavily wetted surface to produce fully enclosed microstructures. A model has been developed in COMSOL 4.2 to look at the complex interactions of the forces involved. The model is a fully coupled model combining both the electrostatics and phase-field modules within COMSOL. Results from the simulations agree with the experimental data available and have suggested several further avenues for experimental study.

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