Control of Adhesion using Surface Functionalisations for Robotic Microhandling.

International audienceRobotic microhandling is a promising way to assemble microcomponents in order to manufacture new generation of Hybrid Micro ElectroMechanical Systems (HMEMS). However, at the scale of several micrometers, adhesion phenomenon highly perturbs the micro-objects release and the positioning. This phenomenon is directly linked to both the object and the gripper surface mechanical and chemical properties. The control of the adhesion properties requires multidisciplinary approaches including roughness control, mechanical properties control and chemical surface functionalisation. We propose to control adhesion by using chemical surface functionalisations by intrinsic conducting polymer electrodeposition or Self-Assembly Monolayer (SAM) and using surface structuration

Potentiometric miniaturized pH sensors based on polypyrrole films

Potentiometric pH miniaturized sensors based on electrosynthesized polypyrrole films were developped. These pH sensors consist in two interdigitated microarray electrodes which were fabricated using photolithography process. One electrode of the sensor is coated by a polypyrrole film while the other one is coated by a silver film used as reference electrode. The potentiometric responses of these sensors were generally linear to pH changes in the range from 2 to 11. More, some sensors appeared to be stable in time during 30 days. The effect of the thickness of polymer film to potentiometric responses was also studied. It appeared that thinner polypyrrole films gave better potentiometric responses than thicker ones

Modeling of electrostatic forces induced by chemical surface functionalisation for microrobotics applications.

International audienceNon-contact microrobotics is a promising way to avoid adhesion caused by the well-known scale effects. Nowadays, several non-contact micro-robots exist. Most of them are controlled by magnetic or dielectrophoresis phenomena. To complete this, we propose a method based on electrostatic force induced by chemical functionalisation of substrates. In this study, we show a model of this force supported by experimental results. We reached long range forces measuring an interaction force of several microNewtons and an interaction distance of tens micrometers. This paper shows the relevance of using chemical electrostatic forces for microrobotics applications

Novel in situ electrochemical deposition of platinum nanoparticles by sinusoïdal voltages on conducting polymer films.

International audiencePlatinum (Pt) nanoparticles were successfully electrodeposited in situ on an organic conductive polymer, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), using for the first time sinusoidal voltages of various frequencies in a chloroplatinic acid solution. The organic PEDOT matrix was electrodeposited on Pt electrode chips. The Pt electrode chips consist of a 150 nm Pt layer deposited on 100-oriented standard 3'' silicon wafers. The cyclic voltammograms of the PEDOT-Pt-nanoparticles composite material recorded in 0.5 M H2SO4 aqueous solution demonstrated that Pt nanoparticles are electrochemically active. Values of the roughness of the composite materials, measured by optical non-contact 3D profilometry, ranging from 880 nm to 1.6 m were obtained depending on the time of deposition of the nanoparticles. The PEDOT-Pt-nanoparticles composite deposited by a sinusoidal voltage with a frequency range of 0.1 Hz - 100 kHz, 50 frequencies, has the largest active surface area (5.16 cm2) compared with other composite coatings prepared in this work and those previously reported. Atomic force microscopic (AFM) images revealed the presence of numerous deposited Pt nanoparticles on the organic PEDOT polymer film

A Biosensor for Urea from Succinimide-Modified Acrylic Microspheres Based on Reflectance Transduction

New acrylic microspheres were synthesised by photopolymerisation where the succinimide functional group was incorporated during the microsphere preparation. An optical biosensor for urea based on reflectance transduction with a large linear response range to urea was successfully developed using this material. The biosensor utilized succinimide-modified acrylic microspheres immobilized with a Nile blue chromoionophore (ETH 5294) for optical detection and urease enzyme was immobilized on the surface of the microspheres via the succinimide groups. No leaching of the enzyme or chromoionophore was observed. Hydrolysis of the urea by urease changes the pH and leads to a color change of the immobilized chromoionophore. When the color change was monitored by reflectance spectrophotometry, the linear response range of the biosensor to urea was from 0.01 to 1,000 mM (R2 = 0.97) with a limit of detection of 9.97 μM. The biosensor response showed good reproducibility (relative standard deviation = 1.43%, n = 5) with no interference by major cations such as Na+, K+, NH4+ and Mg2+. The use of reflectance as a transduction method led to a large linear response range that is better than that of many urea biosensors based on other optical transduction methods

A self assembled monolayer based microfluidic sensor for urea detection

Urease (Urs) and glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH) have been covalently co-immobilized onto a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) comprising of 10-carboxy-1-decanthiol (CDT) via EDC–NHS chemistry deposited onto one of the two patterned gold (Au) electrodes for estimation of urea using poly(dimethylsiloxane) based microfluidic channels (2 cm × 200 μm × 200 μm). The CDT/Au and Urs-GLDH/CDT/Au electrodes have been characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, contact angle (CA), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and electrochemical cyclic voltammetry (CV) techniques. The electrochemical response measurement of a Urs-GLDH/CDT/Au bioelectrode obtained as a function of urea concentration using CV yield linearity as 10 to 100 mg dl−1, detection limit as 9 mg dl−1 and high sensitivity as 7.5 μA mM−1 cm−2