0-7803-7185-2/02/$10.

00 ©2002 IEEE 113

0-7803-7185-2/02/$10.00 ©2002 IEEE 114
 Pump chamber Flow channel pressure sensor
Drain port ruler
Outlet
Inlet
20 mm
Reservoir

Supply port
35 mm

(a) Flow Rate (b) Pressure

(a) micro pump chip
Outlet
3 mm
(c) inlet
Pump chamber
0.5 mm
Inlet
(b) pump chamber (d)outlet
Figure 6. Photograph of the completed micro
pump and SEM images of the pump chamber, the
inlet and the outlet channel.
chamber, two diffusers and flow channels was formed by Deep
Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) process, as shown in Fig. 5 (4)-(6).
The remaining thickness of the silicon for the pump chamber
was available as a diaphragm. After removing the silicon
dioxide layers, a indium tin oxide (ITO) layer was formed on the
opposite surface of the silicon substrate. A pyrex glass plate
with supply and drain ports was stacked on the silicon by anodic
bonding. A 70 µm thick PZT plate was mounted on the
diaphragm with glue, as shown in Fig. 5 (7)-(8).
Figure 6 shows a photograph of the completed micro pump
with size of 20 mm x 35 m m x 0.7 mm and SEM images of the
pump chamber with size of 0.5 mm x 3 mm and the inlet/outlet
channels.
EXPERIMENTS
The displacement of the diaphragm, flow rate and pressure
were evaluated for the characteristics of the completed micro
pump. The micro pump was set in a polycarbonate flame with
electrical probes and fluid connectors for measurement of flow
rate and pressure. As a fluid connector, silicone tubes of 2 mm
inner diameter were used.
Figure 7 (a) and (b) show the experimental setups of flow
Measurement Measurement
Figure 7. Schematic of experimental setups.
rate and pressure of the micro pump, respectively. The driving
waveforms were supplied to the electrical probes on PZT plate
by a function generator in combination with an amplifier. The
displacement of the PZT plate surface was directly measured by
a Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV) to estimate the displacement
of the diaphragm on the pump chamber. The flow rate was
measured from the averaged speed of liquid level under almost
the same static pressure at the inlet and the outlet. The
generated pressure at the outlet (forward direction) was
measured by setting a pressure sensor at the end of the tube
connected to the drain port. The pressure was measured at
zero flow rate with keeping the inlet open and the outlet closed.
The pump was turned on after the pressure reaching the
equilibrium state. The generated pressure at inlet (backward
direction) was measured in the same way as forward direction
by setting the pressure sensor on the supply port side.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Figure 8 shows the displacement of the diaphragm at
different voltage of 1 kHz sine wave. The theoretical values
analyzed by FEM were compared with the experimental results.
The experimental values were about 70 % less than the
theoretical ones. This discrepancy was thought to be caused by
inadequate poling of PZT, location error of PZT, thickness error
of diaphragm and effect of glue layer.
Figure 9 and Figure 10 show the flow rate and the
generated pressure of the micro pump as a function of driving
voltage (height of waveform) at 11 kHz of repeating frequency,
respectively. The theoretical values were shown in the same
graph. Bi-directional pumping was successfully confirmed.
The pumping direction was switched over by changing the
shape of waveform and the flow rate was adjusted with good
controllability in a range from 15 nl/s to 220 nl/s by changing the

0-7803-7185-2/02/$10.00 ©2002 IEEE 115

0-7803-7185-2/02/$10.00 ©2002 IEEE 116