Fundamental Analysis of a Thin Film Type Conducting Polymer Actuator

摘要

For the micro machine under the atmosphere, a new actuator by conducting polymer is developed. The polypyrrole is one of the conducting polymers. Especially, in cases in which this polymer is used, it is easy to make very thin and arbitrary shape sheets. So, this actuator has a bimorph structure which consists of polypyrrole and acetate thin films. In general, the conducting polymers expand and shrink with doping and dedoping, respectively, driven electro-chemically, in the electrolyte. However, this actuator deforms with shrinkage. This motion is based on a discharge of a water molecule by the Joule heating. In this paper, to realize a positioning control, the fundamental characteristics of this actuator are analyzed experimentally. It has been confirmed that the prototype actuator can be moved correctly under humidity 55-73%.