Nano encoders based on vertical arrays of individual carbon nanotubes

Linear encoders for nanoscale position sensing based on vertical arrays of individual carbon nanotubes are presented. Vertical arrays of single multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) are realized using a combination of electron beam lithography (EBL) and plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition growth. EBL is used to define 50- to 150-nm nickel catalyst dots at precise locations on a silicon chip. Precise control of the position, density and alignment of the tubes has been achieved. Aligned nanotube arrays with spacing varying from 250 nm to 25 μm are realized. Field emission properties of the array are investigated inside a scanning electron microscope equipped with a 3-d.o.f. nanorobotic manipulator with nanometer resolution functioning as a scanning anode. With this scanning anode and the single MWNT array, a nano encoder is investigated experimentally. Vertical position is detected by the change in emission current, whereas the horizontal position of the scanning anode is sensed from the emission distribution. A resolution of 98.3 nm in the vertical direction and 38.0 nm (best: 12.9 nm) in the lateral direction has been achieved.     

SU-8-based rapid tooling for thermal roll embossing

Rapid, flexible and low-cost tooling is particularly required in replication processes especially with small and medium volume as in research labs or startups. Epoxy stamps have been used in hot embossing and injection moulding since a few years. In this work, SU-8 epoxy-based patterns were generated on silicon wafers, which were employed as stamps in hot roll embossing of cyclic-olefin-copolymer and poly-methyl-methacrylate foils using a commercial laminator. This method combines the accuracy of lithographic patterning of SU-8 resist with the mass production capability of roll embossing. The stamp fabrication process can be performed in less than a few hours using photolithography for ten to hundred micrometers feature size and electron beam lithography for the sub-micronic range.     

Varifocal liquid lenses with integrated actuator, high focusing power and low operating voltage fabricated on 200 mm wafers

We developed an innovative type of varifocal liquid lens actuated by electrostatic parallel plates. The 3 mm diameter lens is made of a polymer membrane that encapsulates a high permittivity liquid in a cavity on top of a glass wafer. Annular electrodes situated below the membrane and on the glass wafer form the electrostatic parallel plates actuator. By applying a voltage between the electrodes, the electrostatic actuation generated reduces the gap and pushes the liquid towards the center of the lens changing the curvature of the membrane.Compared to previous liquid lenses, very compact devices (≤6 mm × 6 mm × 0.7 mm) working at a reduced supply voltage (<25 V) are demonstrated. Wave front measurements indicate an optical power change of 8 m⁻¹ at 22 V_RMS that can be further improved. The lenses were fabricated on 200 mm wafers using standard microelectronics processes that make our solution a promising small outline, low voltage and low cost candidate for auto-focus devices in camera phones.     

Electron‐optics of the Fast Intelligent Tracking (F!T) tube: A CRT without a shadow mask

Abstract— In this paper, we describe the electron‐optics involved in realizing a maskless CRT based on tracking the electron beams along horizontally aligned phosphor lines. We discuss the boundary conditions in order for the system to function. Emphasis is placed on the requirements of color purity, beam current, and spot size. A dedicated electron gun has been designed and tested. Results indicate that the spot‐size requirements for the feasibility of the concept can be met. The depth of focus, in terms of the allowed mismatch of the dynamic focusing voltage, is small. Inter‐beam space‐charge repulsion turns out to be unproblematic. The cathode drive is shown to lead to beam displacements that cannot be corrected. Consequently, a grid‐1 drive has to be used.     

Nanoscale Pattern Definition on Nonplanar Surfaces Using Ion Beam Proximity Lithography and Conformal Plasma-Deposited Resist

Ion beam proximity lithography (IBL) is a technique where a broad beam of energetic light ions floods a stencil mask and transmitted beamlets transfer the mask pattern to resist on a substrate. With a depth-of-field up to 20000 times larger than the minimum feature size and the high-throughput potential of a parallel exposure tool, IBL is very attractive for prototyping and manufacturing nanoelectromechanical systems over the steep topography of micromachined silicon wafers. This paper reports a conformal resist coating process that unlocks this potential. This negative-tone resist, plasma-polymerized methyl methacry- late, has a sensitivity of 27 muC/cm² and a contrast of 1.3 for 30-keV He⁺ ion exposures and amyl acetate developer. Sub-100-nm features have been printed down the sidewall and across a membrane at the bottom of a 500-mum-deep anisotropically etched pit in a silicon wafer. Pattern fidelity is near 2 nm for 10-nm features. Lines have also been formed on unpolished substrates, including rolled titanium foils and coarse-ground silicon wafers. Patterns on ground silicon have been etched into the surface using a nickel hard mask and SF₆/O₂ reactive ion etching.     

Pressure nonlinearity of micromachined piezoresistive pressure sensors with thin diaphragms under high residual stresses

Thermal residual stress plays a significant role in the performance of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) pressure sensor devices. For example, the voltage span and pressure nonlinearity (PNL) on the voltage output of a pressure sensing element can be significantly affected by the residual stresses of passivation films on the silicon diaphragm. The objective of this study is to resolve a pressure nonlinearity problem in terms of silicon nitride residual stress and diaphragm thickness in order to meet the PNL design criteria within ±3% at 25 °C. The curvatures of wafers were measured and the film residual stresses were calculated. Finite element analyses (FEA) were conducted and correlated with the PNL experimental tests. To build a design window for optimization, a central composite design (CCD) method was utilized to significantly reduce the number of FEA runs. It is concluded that the residual stress of PECVD silicon nitride needs to be optimized and controlled in order to reduce the pressure nonlinearity.     

多孔硅残余应力的研究

利用电化学腐蚀的方法在p型单晶硅(100)衬底上制备了多孔硅薄膜。利用微拉曼光谱法分别测量了处于湿化—干燥—再湿化3个阶段的多孔硅薄膜的拉曼频移,对多孔硅内应变引起的频移改变量和纳米硅晶粒因声子限制效应引起的频移改变量进行分离,找到多孔硅薄膜残余应力与拉曼频移之间的关系式。利用这一关系式,对不同孔隙率的多孔硅薄膜的残余应力进行了计算,获得了和声子模型拟合方法相一致的结果。研究中发现,多孔硅表面残余应力随孔隙率的增加而线性增大,其原因为随着孔隙率的增加,多孔硅晶格常数增大,且干燥过程中残液的蒸发产生的毛细应力使多孔硅薄膜与基体硅间晶格错配程度增大造成的。     

Technology tools for a high precision accelerometer in bulk micromechanics

The high precision accelerometer consists of 5 silicon wafers and packages by silicon fusion bonding. The sensor has a capacitance measuring principle and works in an open loop or closed loop operation mode. The etching process for the realization of thin beams and seismic mass, the silicon fusion bonding and the metallization process are described.     

Design of an integrated optical pickup with NA of 0.85 for small form factor optical disk drives

We design an integrated optical pickup for small form factor optical disk drives. The specifications of the pickup are compatible with those of the Blu-ray disk (BD) in terms of numerical aperture (NA) of the objective lens, the wavelength of the laser diode, and the thickness of the cover layer. The objective lens unit with NA of 0.85 consists of two aspherical refractive lenses and a diffractive optical element for compensation of the chromatic aberration. Each element of objective lens unit will be fabricated on a wafer as an array type, and the three wafers will be aligned and bonded to form an objective lens array. Therefore, elements of the objective lens unit are designed to have sufficient alignment tolerances for various directions such as de-center and tilt. The optical performances of the objective lens unit are evaluated by simulation against various disturbances such as wavelength change of emitting light from laser diode, misalignments, etc. We also design a quarter wave plate, a polarized holographic optical element, and the shape of photodiode integrated circuit array to generate focusing and tracking error signals. The entire height of the pickup including working distance is 2 mm, and the effective pupil diameter of the objective lens unit is less than 1 mm.     

Formation of homogenous nanofibers using silicon microneedle spinnerets

We report the use of a silicon microfabricated device as a new spinneret for electrospinning purposes. This device has been realized on silicon substrates using a deep reactive ion etching process. To make proper holes in the center of microneedles, a rotating angle deposition method followed by vertical etching of silicon is employed. By using these needles as fluid nozzles in the electrospinning process, poly vinyl alcohol solution with a concentration of 7?% has been converted into nanofibers. The formation of nanofibers has been investigated using field emission scanning electron microscopy. Using this process, nanofibers with a diameter of 100–200?nm are realized where the dispersion is less than 50?nm. Finally, the effects of needle size and the applied voltage have been investigated on the diameter of nanofibers.     

Mechanical and electrical bonding between silicon wafer and glass wafer with etched channels containing metal tracks

In this paper a novel process to bond and, at the same time, to electrically connect a silicon wafer to a glass wafer is presented. It consists of a low temperature anodic bonding process between silicon and glass by using a glass wafer with etched channels in order to contain metal tracks. The glass-to-silicon anodic bonding process at low temperatures (not exceeding 300°C) assures a strong mechanical link (Berthold et al. in Transducers 1999, June:7–10, 1999). The electrical contacts between the metal pads on the backside of a silicon wafer and the metal pads on the glass wafer are achieved by sintering and diffusion of metals due to a kind of thermo compression bonding. This bonding method permits a high vertical control due to a well-controlled etching of the cavity depth and to the thickness precision of both metallization (pads on silicon wafers and metal tracks on glass wafer). This IC-processing compatible approach opens up the way to a new electrical connection concept keeping, at the same time, a strong mechanical bond between glass and silicon wafers for an easier fabrication of a more complex micro-system.     

BESOI-based integrated optical silicon accelerometer

The design, simulation, fabrication and characterization of a new integrated optical accelerometer is presented in this paper. The reduction of fabrication, packaging and thermomechanical stresses are considered by keeping the weak mechanical parts free of stresses. The mechanical sensor consists on a quad beam structure with one single mass. In addition, there are two waveguides on the frame of the chip self-aligned to one on the mass of the accelerometer. Four lateral beams increase the mechanical sensitivity and allow the flat displacement of the optical waveguides on the mass. The working principle is based on the variation of the output light intensity versus the acceleration due to the misalignment of the waveguides. The devices have been optimized by the finite-element method to obtain a mechanical sensitivity of 1 /spl mu/m/g. The fabrication technology is based on BESOI wafers combining bulk an surface micromachining. Moreover, machined glass wafers with cavities are bonded to the silicon wafer for packaging and damping control. Special packaging considerations as dicing, polishing and alignment are also presented. Optical measurements at 633 nm shown an optical sensitivity of 2.3 dB/g for negative and 1.7 dB/g for positive acceleration. This difference in the sensitivity has been demonstrated as a consequence of the passivation layer located over the core of the waveguides.     

Multi-walled microchannels: free-standing porous silicon membranesfor use in μTAS

Electrochemically formed porous silicon (PS) can be released from the bulk silicon substrate by underetching at increased current density. Using this technique, two types of channels containing free-standing layers of PS were constructed, which were failed multi-walled microchannels (MW μCs). They can be used in devices like microsieves, microbatteries, and porous electrodes. Two types of MWμC were made: the “conventional” version, consisting of two or more coaxially constructed microchannels separated by a suspended PS membrane, and the buried variety, where a PS membrane is suspended halfway in an etched cavity surrounded by silicon nitride walls. The latter is more robust. The pore size of the PS was measured using transmission electron microscopy and field emission gun scanning electron microscopy (FEGSEM) and found to be of the order of 7 nm     

Piezoelectric micromotors for microrobots

The authors have begun research into piezoelectric ultrasonic motors using ferroelectric thin films. The authors have fabricated the stator components of these millimeter diameter motors on silicon wafers. Ultrasonic motors consist of two pieces: a stator and a rotor. The stator includes a piezoelectric film in which bending is induced in the form of a traveling wave. A small glass lens placed upon the stator becomes the spinning rotor. Piezoelectric micromotors overcome the problems currently associated with electrostatic micromotors such as low torque, friction, and the need for high voltage excitation. More importantly, they may offer a much simpler mechanism for coupling power out. Using thin films of lead zirconate titanate on silicon nitride membranes, various types of actuator structures can be fabricated. By combined new robot control systems with piezoelectric motors and micromechanics, the authors propose creating micromechanical systems that are small, cheap and completely autonomous     

Fabrication of compliant high aspect ratio silicon microelectrode arrays using micro-wire electrical discharge machining

This paper reports on the fabrication of high aspect ratio silicon microelectrode arrays by micro-wire electrical discharge machining (μ-WEDM). Arrays with 144 electrodes on a 400 μm pitch were machined on 6 and 10 mm thick p-type silicon wafers to a length of 5 and 9 mm, respectively. Machining parameters such as voltage and capacitance were varied for different wire types to maximize the machining rate and to obtain uniform electrodes. Finite element analysis was performed to investigate electrode shapes with reduced lateral rigidity. These compliant geometries were machined using μ-WEDM followed by a two step chemical etching process to remove the recast layer and to reduce the cross sections of the electrodes.     

几种基于MEMS的纳米梁制作方法研究

特征尺度在纳米量级的梁结构是多种纳机电器件的基本结构.提出了几种基于MEMS技术的纳米梁制作方法,通过利用MEMS技术中材料与工艺的特性实现单晶硅纳米梁的制作.在普通(111)硅片上,利用各向异性湿法腐蚀对(111)面腐蚀速率极低的特性,通过干法与湿法腐蚀相结合制成厚度在100 nm以下的纳米梁.该方法不使用SOI硅片,有效控制了成本.在(100)SOI硅片上,通过氧化减薄的方法得到厚度在100 nm以下的多种纳米梁,由于热氧化的精度高,一致性好,该方法重复性与一致性均较好.在(110)SOI硅片上,利用硅的各向异性腐蚀特性以及(110)硅片的晶向特点,制作宽度在100 nm以下的纳米梁,梁的两个侧面是(111)面.     

工业化硅微机械电容式麦克风的设计与性能计算

给出了一种单芯片硅微机械电容式麦克风的结构设计,并针对此结构对其进行了动态特性分析计算。硅微机械电容式麦克风的两个电极由一个复合敏感膜和一个金属铜底板构成。复合敏感膜包括三层,中间一层是掺杂硼的多晶硅,上下两层是氮化硅,三层复合膜的厚度设计和制作工艺使复合膜处于轻微的拉应力状态。底板采用低温电镀铜技术制作,底板上分布有许多圆形通气孔来调节敏感膜与底板间的空气压膜阻尼。在复合敏感膜和金属铜底板之间采用牺牲层技术制作了一空气间隙,使复合敏感膜和一个金属铜底板之间构成一工作电容。在硅基体的背面采用湿法腐蚀出声音进口腔。针对这一结构我们对其动态特性进行了分析计算,计算出麦克风在9V偏置电压下开环灵敏度为4.99mV/Pa,麦克风最大偏置电压为32.83V,麦克风工作时的频率带宽为0~134kHz。分析结果表明该硅微机械电容式麦克风能满足工业界的使用要求。     

A bidirectional magnetic microactuator using electroplatedpermanent magnet arrays

A novel bidirectional magnetic microactuator using electroplated permanent magnet arrays has been designed, fabricated and characterized. To realize a bidirectional microactuator, CoNiMnP-based permanent magnet arrays have been fabricated first on a silicon cantilever beam using a new electroplating technique. In the fabricated permanent magnets, the vertical coercivity and retentivity have been achieved up to 87.6 kA/m (1100 Oe) and 190 mT (1900 G), respectively by applying magnetic field during electroplating. A prototype bidirectional magnetic microactuator has been realized by integrating an electromagnet with a silicon cantilever beam, which has permanent magnet arrays on its tip. By applying a do current of 100 mA and altering its polarity, bidirectional motion on the tip of the cantilever beam has been successfully achieved in the deflection range of ±80 μm     

Miniaturized fluorescence excitation platform with optical fiber for bio-detection chips

This paper presents a new research study on the fabrication of a fluorescence bio-detection chip with an optical fiber transmission platform. Anisotropic wet etching on (100) silicon wafers to fabrication V-groove for optical fiber alignment and micro-mirror were included. Combined with anodic bonding technique to adhere glass, silicon structure and optical fiber for a fluorescence excitation platform was completed. In this study, a 40% KOH etching solution was used to study the parameter effect. The results show that the working temperature is the main parameter that significantly effects the etch rate. The anisotropic etching resulted in 54.7° reflective mirrors and the reflectivity for the optical beam was also examined. The surface roughness of the micro-mirror is Ra 4.1 nm measured using AFM providing excellent optical reflection. The incident light and beam profiles were also examined for further study. This study shows that this micro-platform is adaptable for fluorescence bio-detection.     

A surface-tension driven micropump for low-voltage and low-power operations

In this paper, we first report a micropump actuated by surface tension based on continuous electrowetting (CEW). We have used the surface-tension-induced motion of a mercury drop in a microchannel filled with an electrolyte as actuation energy for the micropump. This allows low voltage operation as well as low-power consumption. The micropump is composed of a stack of three wafers bonded together. The microchannel is formed on a glass wafer using SU-8 and is filled with electrolyte where the mercury drop is inserted. The movement of the mercury pushes or drags the electrolyte, resulting in the deflection of a membrane that is formed on the second silicon wafer. Another silicon wafer, which has passive check valves and holes, is stacked on the membrane wafer, forming inlet and outlet chambers. Finally, these two chambers are connected through a silicone tube forming the complete micropump. The performance of the fabricated micropump has been tested for various operation voltages and frequencies. We have demonstrated actual liquid pumping up to 70 /spl mu/l/min with a driving voltage of 2.3 V and a power consumption of 170 /spl mu/W. The maximum pump pressure is about 800 Pa at the applied voltage of 2.3 V with an operation frequency of 25 Hz.