Effects of liquid property and substrate roughness on the response time of an electrowetting liquid lens

Gyu Suk Jung; Jin Su Lee; Yong Hyub Won

doi:10.1117/12.2286273

22 February 2018 Effects of liquid property and substrate roughness on the response time of an electrowetting liquid lens

Gyu Suk Jung, Jin Su Lee, Yong Hyub Won

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10545, MOEMS and Miniaturized Systems XVII; 1054516 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2286273
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2018, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Electrowetting is a phenomenon that controls the surface tension of droplets by electricity and changes the wettability of the droplets. There are many applications of electrowetting, such as tunable liquid lenses, electronic paper and 3D display. Response time of electrowetting applications is important for them, but the relationship between response time and the physical parameters for electrowetting operation has not been deeply investigated. Therefore, we have investigated the effects of physical properties such as viscosity, interfacial tension and substrate roughness on the response time in AC electrowetting and found the optimal conditions for fast electrowetting. Also, an electrowetting circular lens was fabricated based on the optimal conditions and compared to a conventional electrowetting circular lens for response time. The experiment was conducted on a 0.4 mm thick aluminum plate with a 1μm thin parylene C film deposited with a 50 nm Teflon coating. The experiment results showed that the fastest response time is obtained at 5 mPa∙s conducting liquid (water-glycerol mixture) with 0 wt % SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate) on default aluminum plate (RMS roughness 270 nm). Through this experiment, it was possible to control the spreading response pattern of electrowetting from under-damped response to over-damped response by changing the conditions of viscosity of conducting liquid, surface tension between two immiscible liquids, and substrate roughness. Also, a critical damping response was implemented using a hardware method by applying the optimum condition without voltage shape variation technology.

Citation Download Citation

Gyu Suk Jung, Jin Su Lee, and Yong Hyub Won "Effects of liquid property and substrate roughness on the response time of an electrowetting liquid lens", Proc. SPIE 10545, MOEMS and Miniaturized Systems XVII, 1054516 (22 February 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2286273

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available