Sliding Contact Using Electroconductive Liquid and Its Application to Low-physical-restriction Micropotentiometer.

In this paper, a sliding electrical contact with an electroconductive liquid is presented. We have proposed a sliding contact using a combination of an electroconductive liquid and a dipped probe electrode. The proposed connection can overcome the drawback of a conventional electrical connection, such as the suspension spring for microactuators, and enables the connection distance to be extended without increasing restriction. As a typical application of the sliding contact, a low-physical-restriction micropotentiometer is designed. Conventional potentiometers have physical restrictions or sliding friction caused by a sliding contact of a variable electrical resistance. It is not practical to apply conventional potentiometers having a high sliding friction to measure the motion of microactuators. The proposed micropotentiometer can significantly reduce the physical restrictions at the contact point of variable resistances. Moreover, the proposed micropotentiometer can detect displacements of 2 µm with good linearity. The measured restriction force is a few mN when the probe is moved in an electroconductive liquid at 5 µm/s, whereas the value for a commercial potentiometer is more than 100 mN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]