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An in situ heater for a phase-change-material-based actuation system

Article  in  Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering · July 2010

DOI: 10.1088/0960-1317/20/8/085039

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An In situ Heater for a Phase-Change-Material-based Actuation System

Himanshu J. Sant1,2,a and Tammy Ho1, Bruce K. Gale2,b

State of Utah Center of Excellence for Biomedical Microfluidics, 1Department of
Bioengineering, 2Departmentof Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah,
50 S. Central Campus Drive, Rm. 2110, Salt Lake City, UT 84112

a
Corresponding Author: himanshu.sant@utah.edu, phone (801) 585-3176, fax (801) 585-
9826
b
bruce.gale@utah.edu, phone (801) 585-5944, fax (801) 585-9826, URL
www.mems.utah.edu

Abstract

This work reports efforts to develop paraffin actuators that rely on a phase change

to achieve actuation. While paraffin phase-change actuators have existed for some time,

this work relies on heating the paraffin in situ, rather than using external heaters.

Graphite is used to create an in situ heater that utilizes resistive heating as a voltage is

applied across the graphite-paraffin wax mixture. The main motivation behind this work

is to reduce the actuation time and power required. An added advantage of the developed

in situ heater is the use of printed circuit board technology to fabricate the prototypes

rapidly and in a cost-effective manner. A video microscope and IR camera are used to

characterize the performance of the actuators built in this work. Different compositions

of graphite in paraffin wax are used to measure the actuator performance characteristics

such as actuation time, actuation height, and power required. Use of both DC and a

pulsed power input is done to test the prototypes. Comparison with a similar actuator that

utilizes a thin film heater shows a 90% reduction in actuation time for similar power

usage. The actuator developed as part of this work resulted in 0.577 mm dot height at

0.69 W power input in 6 s translating to ~ 4 J/actuation for an actuator chamber of 2.82

1
µL. A new performance metric, “effective actuation time (W/s mm4)”, is used to compare

the performance of this technology with other phase-change-material based actuators and

the actuator developed in this work is found to be 10 to 200 times better.

2
Introduction

The last two decades have seen a rapid growth in actuation technology for

microscale applications [1]. A number of approaches that range from capacitive

movement for very high resolution but small actuation [2] to piezo-resistive type

actuators for rapid actuations [3] have been reported and find their niche in specific

applications. Phase-change-material (PCM)-based actuators utilize volume expansion of

the PCM with either heat or pressure to enable for large actuations. Thermal or heat-

based actuators utilize the volume or phase change of a liquid or solid due to generate

motion [ 4]. The main advantages of such systems are the large stroke length and high

force capabilities, along with a completely sealed architecture- important features for an

effective actuator [ 5]. For this reason, a number of groups have developed actuators for

MEMS and microfluidic applications (valves) using paraffin or similar phase-change

materials [4, 6, 7]. While paraffin melting can induce pressure as high as 20 MPa, these

phase-change-materials have very low thermal conductivity (a reason why they are good

candidates for thermal storage systems), which necessitates high power consumption and

long actuation times, unfavorable features for an effective actuator [ 8]. For example, a

paraffin-based array of actuators with a thin film heater at one end of the actuator using

silicon micromachining was developed for a tactile display with actuation times as high

as 1 minute [ 9]. Electrothermal paraffin (or similar PCM)-based actuators use a thin film

heater in the actuator chamber [4,9]. The small surface area of the heater in direct contact

with PCM in addition to the low PCM thermal conductivity results in slow actuation. A

recent paper shows a similar actuator with a thin film heater in the middle of the chamber

that requires close to 17 s to actuate only 35 µm [ 10]. This reaction time is very slow for

3
an actuator, especially compared to the near-instantaneous actuations achieved using

piezo-actuators. Unfortunately, piezoelectrics are typically expensive and difficult to

miniaturize or integrate with microfluidics [11].

Use of PCM doping with a higher thermal conductivity material, or increasing the

heater surface area, can be made to increase the actuation time for a given volume and

type of paraffin (or similar material). This paper reports just such an actuator for the first

time that has an in situ heater created by adding graphite as a conductive agent to

paraffin. We communicated this novel design approach to create microfluidic valves

earlier [ 12] with a simultaneous publication by others [8]. The latter report attempted to

explain the phenomenological advantages of using graphite or a similar material to

improve the actuation times for PCM-based actuators, but did not report successful

actuation. Just recently, preliminary reports of a similar actuator that uses carbon black

as a doping agent have been published[ 13]. While this short conference paper showed a

successful actuation using 1-2% carbon black, it uses conventional micromachining

techniques that require expensive and dedicated equipment with copper and silicon as the

substrates. The high thermal conductivities of these materials create heat loss to the

adjacent chambers and the ambient environment, thus resulting in a low efficiency

system. In contrast, our paper reports an entirely different design and fabrication

approach that is more suitable for rapid prototyping and easier integration with

microfluidic devices. It should be noted that the addition of graphite as the conductive

agent not only increases the thermal conductivity of the composite, but also creates an in

situ heater for the actuator.

4
 • 1. 6 mm

Figure 1. Architecture of the in situ heater paraffin actuator.

Figure 1 shows the configuration of the in situ heater based actuator containing a

graphite-paraffin composite (initially in solid form) as the working material. Copper

electrodes located at the top and bottom of the PCM chamber made in the PCB are used

to apply voltage across the electrically conductive PCM. This graphite-paraffin PCM

works as a resistor leading to resistive heating of paraffin in the chamber. Melting of the

solid paraffin and subsequent expansion pushes a thin silicone membrane to accomplish

actuation. One of the advantages of this actuator architecture from a manufacturing point

of view is the elimination of the thin film heaters that typically use highly resistive metals

and require special deposition steps. Use of copper and relatively large linewidths allows

us to use standard electric circuit fabrication methods for rapid prototyping without the

use of dedicated microfabrication equipment. Another direct advantage of this approach

is that the “heater” is contained in the PCM chamber itself and thus reduces the spread of

heat to adjacent actuators, an important feature for an array of actuators.

5
 This paper examines the fabrication results of the actuator using the graphite-

paraffin composite and provides characterization results of the in situ heater. It is very

important to test the actuation behavior with this in situ heater in operation, as there are a

number of unknowns in terms of actuation times, power utilization, repeatability and

sustainability. This paper will reveal what graphite-paraffin composite composition

yields the optimum actuation and how much improvement in actuation time can be made

using this configuration over conventional wall-heater-based actuators

Experimental

Fabrication

PCM chamber
A printed circuit board was used as the substrate to fabricate the electrothermal actuators

being developed in this work. The PCB used for this work was 1.46 mm thick with a 35 µm

copper layer on both sides. The architecture of the actuator in Figure 1 shows the chamber for the

phase-change-material (PCM), copper electrodes, and a second PCB backing. The diameter of

the PCM chamber is 1.6 mm and is based on standard Braille dot sizes [9]. The PCM chamber

was machined using a Dremel tool (395, Dremel, Racine, WI) for single-chamber prototypes and

a 64 chamber array was custom made by Advanced Circuits, Aurora, CO. Copper electrodes

were patterned on PCB using masking tape (9598BF, 3M, MN) and etched with ferric chloride

(FX 2105-1, EMD Chemicals Inc., NJ). A knife plotter (FC5100-75, Graphtec, CA) was used to

cut this tape into small strips such that the resultant copper electrode width would be 1 mm.

Small rings of electrically conductive silver epoxy (E4110, Epoxy Technology, MA)

were manually applied to the top and bottom inside edges of the PCM chamber as shown in

Figure 1. The silver epoxy consisted of a 1:10 ratio of silver-based resin to curing agent and

required 15 minutes at 115˚C for curing. These rings of silver epoxy allowed a continuous

6
electrical connection between the copper electrodes on PCB and electrically conductive paraffin

wax inside the PCM chamber.

Paraffin Wax

The paraffin wax (Astorstat 10612, IGI Wax, PA) had an open and terminal point of 35

°C and 42 °C respectively with 18% volume of expansion over that range (data supplied by the

vendor).

Graphite-Paraffin Wax Composite and Membrane Patterning

The composition of graphite (Graphite Lubricant, Panef Corp, WI) and expansion

material was expected to be critical to actuator function. Accordingly, six different graphite

mixtures were created. Each mixture was measured by weight with 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60%

of the mixture composed of graphite and the remaining mass paraffin wax. The mixtures were

made in 1-g quantities in a polystyrene petri dish. The Petri dish was then heated on a hot plate at

40˚C and the combination was thoroughly mixed. The mixture was then removed from the hot

plate and allowed to solidify.

To fill the actuation chamber, the mixtures were reheated to 40˚C on a hotplate and a

small portion of the graphite-wax composite was pressed into the chambers. The prototypes were

also heated to 40˚C to prevent the PCM composite from solidifying too quickly. Once the

chambers were filled with the PCM, the prototypes were removed and allowed to cool. After the

chambers were filled with PCM, a 100 µm thick silicone membrane (734, Dow Corning Corp,

MI) was applied with a method similar to Lee et al [9]. The silicone membrane was allowed to

cure for 24 hours.

Characterization

The PCM actuators were characterized using an experimental setup consisting of a video

microscope (Infinivar, Infinity Photo-Optical Company, CO) with a CCD camera attached (CV-

S3200, JAI Corporation, Japan) and a light source (Fiber-Lite PL-8000, Dolan-Jenner Industries,

7
MA). Continuous video taken during the characterization experiments was recorded. The dot

height measurement using video recording was calibrated first with the use of an optical

profilometer (Zygo Optical Profilometer, )and Allied High-Tech Dial indicator measurement

system (1 µm resolution). The dot height reported in this paper is the center deflection

measurement and indicated the height of the dot raised for given actuation. condition The dot

height characterization for required power and actuation time was done such that the resting

position for “dots” was aligned with a reference line: the PCB board. The uncertainity in dot

height measurement was found to be less than 3%. Simultaneously, an IR camera (Thermacam

PM 3930, Inframetrics Inc. MA) was used to take surface silicone membrane surface temperature

readings at specific time intervals along the experimental run. It should be noted that the surface

temperature of the membrane is lower than the internal PCM chamber temperature. The

uncertainity in temperature measurement using this IR camera was found to be ± 0.2 °C

determined using an additional thermocouple to measure the steady state temperature of a heated

copper block [14].

Both DC (E3630, Agilent, CA) and pulsed power inputs (33120A, Agilent, CA) were

used to test the prototypes. Each experimental run was monitored using a video microscope for

actuation time and height measurements and the IR camera was used for temperature

measurements.

Data Processing

Actuation Temperature: Using the IR images taken at the time of the experiments the

surface temperature of the actuators was measured in TherMonitor computer software

(Thermoteknix Systems, UK) and the data was interpolated for every 0.1 second using a

piecewise cubic hermite interpolating polynomial (PCHIP) function in MatLab (Mathworks Inc.,

MA). The paraffin wax used begins melting at 35˚C and is fully liquid at 42˚C. Because these

8
two temperatures are essential to the expansion of the paraffin, the time required to reach 42˚C

was found using Matlab.

Actuation Heights: Images captured from the optical microscope video recordings were

processed using Adobe Illustrator (Adobe Systems Inc., CA) to obtain the actuation height data at

specific times.

Actuator Array

In order to demonstrate the ability of these actuators to be integrated into an array format,

a 64 chamber array of 50% graphite mixture actuators was created using the conventional printed

circuit board technology at Advanced Circuits, Aurora, CO. Specific actuators were powered to

show the ability to selectively actuate using the technology developed in this work.

Results and Discussion

Fabrication

3
4
5

Figure 2. Picture of a single in situ heater actuator. The parts shown are (1) PCB, (2) silicone
membrane, (3) PCM chamber, (4) copper electrode and (5) connecting wires. The silver epoxy
ring is not clearly visible.

Figure 2 shows a picture of an example actuator. A number of such devices were

fabricated to test the various graphite proportions in the PCM composite. Several such

prototypes can be fabricated simultaneously in less than 30 minutes. It should be noted

that the copper wire etching in ferric chloride (~10 minutes) and the curing of silver

epoxy rings (15 minutes) amounts to most of the fabrication time. It should be noted that

9
the manufacturing time mentioned here does not include silicone membrane curing time

(~ 8 hours), but the use of fast curing or UV curable silicone should reduce this curing

time several fold. Overall, the materials and methods used in this work allow for cost

effective and rapid fabrication of the test prototypes.

Actuation Temperature

Actuator

Figure 3. Infrared camera pictures of a 30% graphite mixture actuator using 0.496 W at 0, and 7
s. The bright spot indicating the location of the in-situ heater is at 52˚C.

Examples of pictures taken with the IR camera can be seen in Figure 3 for a 30%

graphite mixture using 0.496 W at 0 and 7 seconds. Because only the surface

temperature could be measured, the measured temperatures are those at the silicone

membrane (emissivity of 0.65). The actuation chamber temperature could not be directly

measured as it is completely enclosed inside the PCB and capped by a silicone

membrane. Since the temperature of the in situ heater located within the chamber should

be equal to or greater than the membrane (or outside surface temperature), the PCM

chamber temperature was assumed the same as the measured membrane temperature to

ensure complete phase change. The temperature measurement “window” was placed

10
right on the actuator surface using the Thermonitor software. Because at 42˚C the

paraffin wax chosen here should be fully molten, the time required to reach 42˚C for the

various graphite percent actuators is plotted in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Plot of time required to reach 42˚C using different power inputs for PCM with various
graphite mixtures. The legend indicates the proportion of graphite in the graphite-paraffin PCM
by weight.
The first notable observation in Figure 4 is that higher power leads to shorter

times required to reach 42˚C. This is expected because higher power produces more

energy per unit time, causing the temperature to rise faster. Notice that the 60% graphite

mixture requires the most time to reach both temperatures. For example, in Figure 4 just

before 0.6 W, the 60% graphite mixture requires close to 12 s to reach 42˚C, whereas

graphite mixtures of 30, 40, and 50% require less than 6 s. This may be due to the fact

that the 60% graphite mixture has the least amount of paraffin wax. The change in

effective thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity with lower amounts of paraffin

wax results in longer actuation time and lower dot heights for a given power input.

11
Observe in Figure 4 within the range of 0.4 to 0.8 W that for 20, 30, 40 and 50% graphite

mixtures to fully actuate requires less than 5 s. Another important result from these

experiments is that higher % graphite PCM had more variation in the measured

temperature for a given input power, thus raising the possibility of lower repeatability for

PCM material with high graphite proportions. In contrast, actuators with lower graphite

proportions (20% and 30%) have lower temperature variations for this set of experiments.

Actuation Heights

A more important parameter for characterization than the increase in temperature

is the resulting actuation heights and time required to do so for a given amount of PCM

volume. Figure 5 displays samples of pictures extracted from the video recordings for a

50% graphite mixture using 2.3 W at various time intervals that shows very rapid

actuation times at high power. The dot heights, meaning the center deflection, were

measured using the diameter of the PCM chamber as a scale. To depict the nature of the

actuation, the height of actuation of the 50% graphite mixture is plotted against time for

the various power inputs (Figure 6). The three lowest power inputs produce no actuation.

In contrast, the two highest power inputs achieved both large and fast actuation.

Actuation height is a function of the input power and one can control the actuator height

by adjusting the power settings for the given graphite-wax composite.

12
Figure 5. Images of the actuation for an actuator with 50% graphite PCM. The input power was
2.3 W. Dot height at 0.21 s is 0.35 mm.

Figure 6. Height of actuation of the 50% graphite mixture versus time with 6 different power
inputs.

13
Figure 7. Time required to reach 50 µm using different power inputs for the various graphite
mixtures.

Displayed in Figure 7 is a graph of the time to reach 50 µm for one actuator of

each of the graphite proportions in PCM. The first noticeable observation in Figure 7 is

that the higher power results in a shorter amount of time necessary to reach 50 µm. As

mentioned before, this pattern is expected because higher power results in more energy

input per unit time, thus raising the temperature faster and causing quicker actuation. The

only data that does not coincide with this trend is the second point near 0.9 W for the

60% graphite PCM. This data point has a very large standard deviation, suggesting low

efficiency and poor reproducibility for 60% graphite PCMs. The next observation is the

amount of time required for the 60% graphite mixture actuator to reach 50 µm. The time

required using about 1.9 W power is longer than that for the actuators with other graphite

proportions in PCM that use only 0.6 W power. This result is similar to the results in

Figure 4 in which the 60% graphite PCM needed more time to reach the melting

temperatures. In addition to the possible reasons already mentioned for the slower

14
reaction times, the 60% graphite mixture’s lower volume of paraffin with higher amount

of graphite may be another contributing factor to the slow times to reach 50 µm dot

height. Though a similar range of voltages were used in all the experiments, the 60%

graphite mixture prototypes had lower electrical resistance and required higher current to

induce PCM melting and actuation subsequently. Looking at the 0.4 to 1.2 W power

range, the 20, 30, 40 and 50% graphite mixtures require less than 5 seconds to achieve 50

µm actuation height. For microfluidic valve applications, this actuation time can be

further reduced by reducing the volume of PCM chamber.

Another discouraging result with 60% graphite is the high variations in reaction

times for given dot height and input power as shown in Figure 7. Non uniform PCM

distribution in the actuator composite could be contribute to such behavior at the higher

graphite proportions. An unexpected result from Figure 6 is the large variability for the

data set at low power operating conditions and progressively smaller deviations at higher

power inputs.

It should be noted that the actuators with 10% graphite did not produce actuation,

and they were not used for further characterization along with actuators with 60%

graphite (due to high power usage).

15
Figure 8. A plot showing the characterization with pulsed voltage input of an actuator that
contains PCM with 50% graphite. Power was turned on for 5 seconds and turned off for 5
seconds for each cycle.
Pulse Actuation

The 50% graphite mixture actuator was much more robust and was tested for its ability to

maintain the actuator height between 0.25 to 0.35 mm for 30 minutes. Figure 8 shows the

actuation heights achieved during the experiment. Each pulse cycle is 10 seconds long consisting

of 5 seconds with the power on (0.59 W) and 5 seconds with the power off. The actuation

throughout the cycling of this 50% graphite mixture actuator remains fairly constant and suggests

the stability of the actuator and potential for prolonged usage.

Actuator Array

16
 • Actuated dots

Figure 9. Image of an array of actuators and copper traces that address each actuator individually.
Actuated dots are indicated by arrows and circles around them.

Figure 9 shows an actuator array in PCB that is manufactured using standard circuit

manufacturing techniques. Copper traces connecting each actuator individually allowed us to

raise specific dots. The lack of air gaps in the PCB resulted in neighboring dots being actuated

after the intended actuators were heated for a long time. Work is underway to create air gaps

using an automated CNC machine and UV laser in PCB to alleviate this shortcoming.

Literature Data Comparison

The in situ heater microactuator design presented here is unique and allows for

rapid prototyping of the actuator arrays. Primarily, the performance of the actuator

developed in this report will be compared to the paraffin-based Braille actuators [9] as the

target actuation heights are similar in both studies. Also included in this comparison is

the preliminary work reported by Goldschmidtböing et al [13]. The important

performance metrics being compared are dot height, power and actuation time as listed in

Table 1.

Table 1. Comparison list of the performance metrics for actuators with paraffin-based phase-
change-material. The PCM for in situ heater listed here contains 20% graphite.

Performance metric Lee and Lucyszyn [9] Lehto et al [10] Goldschmidtböing et al In situ heater in this work
[13]

17
Dot height, mm 0.5 0.037 0.014 0.577

Power, W 0.6 0.23 1.9 0.69

Actuation time, s 60 17 2.5 6

PCM Chamber 4.29 1.88 1.62 2.82

Volume, µL

The comparison of the in situ paraffin actuator data with data for the thin film heater [9]

reveals that the actuation time required is reduced by one order of magnitude for the same power

usage and dot height (Table 1). It can also be seen from Table 1 that direct comparison between

actuators with different geometries and configurations is difficult as the main parameters that

affect the device performance also vary with the actuator type. For this reason, we will define an

effective actuation or reaction time for clearer comparison across the actuator types1

ActuationTime
EffectiveActuationFunction = . (1))
DotHeight ⋅ Power ⋅ PCMChamberVolume

The effective actuation function ( s W ⋅ mm 4 ) for the three devices compared in Table 1

Table 1 are 46.6 [9], 1062.6 [10], 58.0 [13] and 5.3 (this work). The effective actuation

function is an indicator of how fast a dot can be raised for a combination of a unit amount of

power, dot height and chamber volume. This effective actuation function for the in situ heater

developed in this work is the lowest of the three indicating that the in situ heater provides the

most efficient system with respect to the fastest actuation or reaction time.

Additionally, the manufacturing approaches adopted by Lee et al [9], Lehto et al [10]

and Goldschmidtböing et al [13] are much more complex and difficult to accomplish compared

to the in situ actuator. Use of silicon micromachining with processes such as DRIE are needed to

18
achieve the high-aspect ratio chambers and can be expensive in both prototyping and production

stages. In general, the in situ heater actuator manufacturing process is simpler and has a lower

actuation time when compared to the designs using thin film heaters [9, 10] and carbon black

doped PCM heaters [13].

Conclusions

In conclusion, the work has successfully provided the first steps in characterization and

manufacturing development for a phase-change-material-based microactuator with an in situ

heater. The findings show that a minimum amount of graphite (> 10%) was necessary to provide

an electrical connection all the way across the actuation chamber. High graphite content PCM

(60% graphite) was also not optimal and was found to slow actuation times and require excessive

power to induce actuation. In contrast, actuators with the 20, 30, 40 and 50% graphite all

demonstrated good actuation within 0.4 to 1.2 W. Relatively high standard deviations in

measured data, especially for the high graphite PCM and low input power operating conditions,

are observed. Improvements in PCM preparation and loading methods should reduce these

variations. In general, the concept of using an in situ heater was successfully demonstrated and

was able to provide controlled thermal energy to cause the phase change of the paraffin wax, thus

inducing actuation. The PCM actuator is found to be versatile as different actuation heights and

reaction times can be achieved by varying the input power and PCM composition. Future

experiments will involve the temperature measurements inside the PCM chamber using methods

such as confocal microscopy [15], instead of just surface temperature measurements.

This microscale actuator has great potential in both MEMS and microfluidics as it merely

needs an electrical interface to induce actuation. We are applying this technology towards the

development of refreshable Braille cells and microvalves. Efforts are also underway to further

reduce the power consumption in addition to actuation and retraction times.

19
Acknowledgements

Funding for this project was provided by Tactile Response Inc., CA. Authors

acknowledge the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah for providing

the IR camera used in this work. Authors also thank Ahmed Barakat for his efforts in fabricating

the prototypes.

20
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