2011/10/18 by Papageorgiou, Dimitrios P., Angeliki Tserepi, Tserepi, Angeliki +4
Engineering · #Electrophoretic Deposition in Materials Science #Electrowetting and Microfluidic Technologies #FOS: Physical sciences #Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1110.4075
openalex publication_date 2011/10/18 · openalex created_date 2022/10/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The requirement for low operational voltage in electrowetting devices, met\nusing thin dielectrics, is usually connected with serious material failure\nissues. Dielectric breakdown (visible as electrolysis) is frequently evident\nslightly beyond the onset of the contact angle saturation. Here, plasma\nenhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) is used to deposit thin fluorocarbon\nfilms prior to the spin-coating of Teflon textregistered amorphous\nfluoropolymer on tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) substrates. The resulting\nmultilayered hydrophobic top coating improves the electrowetting performance of\nthe stack, by showing high resistance to dielectric breakdown at high applied\nvoltages and for continuous long term application of DC and AC voltage. Leakage\ncurrent measurements during electrowetting experiments with the proposed\ncomposite coating showed that current remains fairly constant at consecutive\nelectrowetting tests in contrast to plain Teflon textregistered coating in\nwhich material degradation is evident by a progressive increase of the leakage\ncurrent after multiple electrowetting tests. Since the proposed composite\ncoating demonstrates increased resistance to material failure and to dielectric\nbreakdown even at thin configurations, its integration in electrowetting\ndevices may impact their reliability, robustness and lifetime.\n