Cantilever Fabrication by a Printing and Bonding Process

Abstract

Cantilevers are a widely used structure in electronics, covering many applications from switches to different kinds of sensors. The majority of them have been manufactured with complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technologies, but the increasing demand on printed electronics also motivates its development with printing techniques. Here, we present a cantilever beam fabricated by printing techniques with a novel manufacturing process that simplifies the fabrication procedure in terms of cost and time. The sacrificial layer is a poly(methyl methacrylate) film, which is not placed between the substrate and the beam, but, as a peculiarity of this process, on top of the beam; that is to say, the sacrificial layer is used as a sacrificial substrate. Another challenge faced in this paper is the use of a plastic foil as the substrate of this structure. In addition, we show experimental results of the physical and electrical characterization of these devices, which are in a reasonable good agreement with simulations by a finite element modeling tool. We tested the deflection of these cantilevers at different values of acceleration and frequency to show the efficiency of the innovative process.