Abstract
Micro-hairs are profound elements widely used in nature. A great variety of animals use them as sensors to gather information about their surroundings. To artificially fabricate these kinds of sensors, we present a method to produce micro-hairs made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). We investigated the laser micro-drilling of wax and polycarbonate (PC) substrates with a 193-nm ArF laser to produce molds suitable for casting micro-hairs. Especially PC molds lead to high-quality micro-hairs. Thus, laser ablation of PC was intensively studied. In order to obtain micro-hair arrays, experiments where performed to optimize the casting techniques of PDMS in PC molds. The possibilities and limitations of the investigated method of micro-hair production are presented.
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Schaefer, M., Jacobs, P., Bauer, D. et al. Investigation and development of a molding process for the production of micro-hairs. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 51, 935–944 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-010-2670-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-010-2670-y