Micromachined Dielectric Elastomer Actuators with Ion Implanted Electrodes

We summarize recent results on micromachined dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA), or artificial muscles, whose compliant electrodes are made by low energy ion-implantation into an elastomer. Out-of-plane displacements in buckling mode of over 25% of the device diameter were observed, with a response time of less than 1 ms. Applications include beam steering, RF switching, and tunable microlens arrays. In addition, when operated below the buckling threshold, the device’s resonance frequency can be tuned from its initial value in the kHz range down to zero, with application in acoustic filtering and analog sound processing.