• KIEE International Transactions on Electrophysics and Applications
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• v.4C no.4
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• pp.137-141
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• 2004

In this paper, a thermopneumatic PMDS (polydimethlysiloxane) micropump with nozzle/diffuser elements is presented. The micropump is composed of nozzle/diffuser elements as dynamic valves, an actuator consisting of a circular PDMS diaphragm and a Cr/Au heater on a glass substrate. Four PDMS layers are used for fabrication of an actuator chamber, actuator diaphragm by a spin coating process, spacer layer, and nozzle/diffuser by the SU-8 molding process. The radius and thickness of the actuator diaphragm is 2 mm and 30 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$, respectively. The length and the conical angle of the nozzle/diffuser elements are 3.5 mm and 20$^{\circ}$, respectively. The actuator diaphragm is driven by the air cavity pressure variation caused by ohmic heating and natural cooling. The flow rate of the micropump in the frequency domain is measured for various duty cycles of the square wave input voltage. When the square wave input voltage of 5 V DC is applied to the heater, the maximum flow rate of the micropump is 44.6 ${mu}ell$/min at 100 Hz with a duty ratio of 80% under the zero pressure difference.