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Design and fabrication of printed electrowetting-on-dielectric device

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Abstract

Due to the expensive price of the fabrication process of the existing semiconductor technology, printing technology has become the center of much attention in research as a micro fabrication technology. Among printing technologies, the rReverse-offset-printing (ROP) method that can achieve high resolution and complicated shape patterns is utilized to fabricate the electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) device, which has been widely researched for the control small-scale droplets. The EWOD device consists of three-layers which were successfully fabricated by the solution-based process. As a metal layer, Ag-ink was printed on the glass substrate by the ROP method. On top of this layer, a polymer solution (polyvinylphenol, PVP) was spin-coated as a dielectric layer, which has a high dielectric strength (100 V/mm) and high dielectric constant (3.9) compared to other spin-coatable dielectric materials. The Teflon solution was spin-coated on top of the dielectric layer to deposit a hydrophobic surface. Using the printed EWOD device, the transport of micro-size droplets was successfully demonstrated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Printed Electronics, Advanced Manufacturing Systems Research Division, Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials, 156, Gajeongbuk-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-343, South Korea

    Bongmin Kim, Seung Jun Lee, Inyoung Kim & Taik-Min Lee

  2. Device and System Center, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), 130, Samsung-ro, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do, 443-803, South Korea

    Seung Jun Lee

Authors
  1. Bongmin Kim
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  2. Seung Jun Lee
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  3. Inyoung Kim
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  4. Taik-Min Lee
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Correspondence to Taik-Min Lee.

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Kim, B., Lee, S.J., Kim, I. et al. Design and fabrication of printed electrowetting-on-dielectric device. Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf. 16, 989–995 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-015-0128-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-015-0128-8

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