title: Increasing the Efficiency of Thermoresponsive Actuation at the Microscale by Direct Laser Writing of pNIPAM
creator: Spratte, Tobias
creator: Geiger, Sophie
creator: Colombo, Federico
creator: Mishra, Ankit
creator: Taale, Mohammadreza
creator: Hsu, Li-Yun
creator: Blasco, Eva
creator: Selhuber-Unkel, Christine
subject: 000
subject: 000 Generalities, Science
subject: 500
subject: 500 Natural sciences and mathematics
subject: 530
subject: 530 Physics
subject: 540
subject: 540 Chemistry and allied sciences
subject: 620
subject: 620 Engineering and allied operations
description: Thermoresponsive hydrogels such as poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) are highly interesting materials for generating soft actuator systems. Whereas the material has so far mostly been used in macroscopic systems, we here demonstrate that pNIPAM is an excellent material for generating actuator systems at the micrometer scale. Two-Photon Direct Laser Writing was used to precisely structure thermoresponsive pNIPAM hydrogels at the micrometer scale based on a photosensitive resist. We systematically show that the surface- to-volume ratio of the microactuators is decisive to their actuation efficiency. The phase transition of the pNIPAM was also demonstrated by nanoindentation experiments. We observed that the mechanical properties of the material can easily be adjusted by the writing process. Finally, we found that not only the total size and surface structure of the microactuator plays an important role, but also the crosslinking of the polymer itself. Our results demonstrate for the first time a systematic study of pNIPAM-based microactuators, which can easily be extended to systems of microactuators that act cooperatively, e.g., in microvalves.
publisher: Universität
date: 2022
type: Preprint
type: info:eu-repo/semantics/preprint
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserverhttps://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/32572/7/Spratte_Increasing_efficiency_thermoresponsive_actuation_2022.pdf
identifier: DOI:10.11588/heidok.00032572
identifier: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-325728
identifier:   Spratte, Tobias ; Geiger, Sophie ; Colombo, Federico ; Mishra, Ankit ; Taale, Mohammadreza ; Hsu, Li-Yun ; Blasco, Eva ; Selhuber-Unkel, Christine  (2022) Increasing the Efficiency of Thermoresponsive Actuation at the Microscale by Direct Laser Writing of pNIPAM.  [Preprint]     
relation: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/32572/
rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/help/license_urhg.html
language: eng