Traditional photolithography methods of fabrication of micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems (MOEMS) can be substituted with graphene to minimize cost and enhance optofluidic system integration. The use of optical disc drives allows graphite oxide to undergo (near infrared) light exposure, with a specified pattern, and transformation to graphene, also with this specified pattern. This work describes the fabrication methods, electrical conduction and hydrophobicity characteristics for graphene microsystems. The fabrication characterisation involves a comparison of graphene fabrication of microsystems with photolithography fabrication. Graphene fabrication was observed to be comparable to the photolithography fabrication, with a comparable minimum feature size. The electrical characterisation involves resistivity measurements of graphene which decrease from n = 1 (where n represents the dose of light exposure in the disc drive), and saturates at n = 12, representing the final transformation to graphene from graphite oxide. The microfluidic characterisation of the graphene surface involves contact angle measurements and favourable wetting properties are shown. By increasing the fabrication dose, the contact angle rises from 50 degrees until saturation at 116 degrees, allowing for contact angle tunability over this range. Overall, fabrication of MOEMS is found to be successfully achievable using graphene fabrication.
|