Microdroplet-based On-Demand Drawing of High Aspect-Ratio Elastomeric Micropillar and Its Contact Sensing Application

High aspect-ratio elastomeric micropillars play important roles as the platform for microscale sensing and actuation. Many soft-lithographic techniques have been developed for their facile realization but most of the techniques are limited to build the micropillars only on totally flat, widely accessible substrate areas with the micropillar’s structural characteristics completely predetermined, leaving little room for in situ control. Here we demonstrate a new technique which overcomes these limitations by directly drawing micropillars from pipette-dispensed PDMS microdroplets using vacuum-chucked microspheres. The combined utilization of PDMS microdroplets and microspheres not only enables the realization of microsphere-tipped PDMS micropillars on non-flat, highly space-constrained substrate areas at in situ controllable heights but also allows arraying of micropillars with dissimilar heights at a close proximity. To validate the new technique’s utility and versatility, we realize PDMS micropillars on various unconventional substrate areas in various configurations. We also convert one of them, the optical fiber/micropillar hybrid, into a soft optical contact sensor. Both the fabrication technique and the resulting sensing scheme will be useful for future biomedical microsystems.