A Short Review on Fabrication Methods of Micro-Cantilever for Ionic Electroactive Polymer Sensors/Actuators

Micro-electroactive polymers have wide applications from industry to healthcare. Artificial muscles, microvalves, microswitches, haptic sensing, blood pressure and pulse monitoring are some potential applications for micro-electroactive polymers. The most advantage of micro-electroactive polymers as sensors and actuators is bio-compatibility and low power threshold for large deformations. In this short review, some applicable fabrication methods of micro-electroactive polymer cantilever are reviewed. Furthermore, a novel method based on standard micro fabrication techniques is designed and discussed in details which presents a conceptual design of a micro-electroactive polymer cantilever on a polymeric anchor located on a silicon substrate for future works.