Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, Vol.519, 121-127, 2010
Fabrication and Characterization of a Polypyrrole Soft Actuator Having Corrugated Structures
Recently, polypyrrole has attracted much attention, because it has a high electroconductivity and can be used in a soft actuator. We have recently succeeded in increasing the expansion and contraction ratio of a polypyrrole film by fabricating a Au/polypyrrole stacked structure, whose polypyrrole film was formed on a Au thin film coated on an acrylic board as working electrode for galvanostatic electropolymerization. Here, we propose a new soft actuator with a corrugated polypyrrole film whose backside is covered by a Au film. The corrugated Au/polypyrrole actuator was fabricated by forming a polypyrrole film on a corrugated acrylic board covered by a Au thin film and successively removing the acrylic board in acetone. Consequently, the expansion and contraction ratio of the actuator increased to 11.6%, while the actuator without the corrugated structures was 8.1%.