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Technology Development for MEMS: A Tutorial

French, P.J. (author), Krijnen, Gijs JM (author), Vollebregt, S. (author), Mastrangeli, Massimo (author)

Silicon sensors date back to before 1960 with early Hall and piezoresistive devices. These used simple processing that was part of the early integrated circuit (IC) industry. As the IC industry developed, silicon sensors could benefit from the technological advances. As silicon sensors advanced, there came the need for new technologies...

journal article 2022

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Sensitive Transfer-Free Wafer-Scale Graphene Microphones

Pezone, R. (author), Baglioni, G. (author), Sarro, Pasqualina M (author), Steeneken, P.G. (author), Vollebregt, S. (author)

During the past decades micro-electromechanical microphones have largely taken over the market for portable devices, being produced in volumes of billions yearly. Because performance of current devices is near the physical limits, further miniaturization and improvement of microphones for mobile devices poses a major challenge that requires...

journal article 2022

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Cavity‐box soi: Advanced silicon substrate with pre‐patterned box for monolithic mems fabrication

Kluba, M.M. (author), Li, J. (author), Parkkinen, Katja (author), Louwerse, Marcus (author), Snijder, Jaap (author), Dekker, R. (author)

Several Silicon on Insulator (SOI) wafer manufacturers are now offering products with customer‐defined cavities etched in the handle wafer, which significantly simplifies the fabrication of MEMS devices such as pressure sensors. This paper presents a novel cavity buried oxide (BOX) SOI substrate (cavity‐BOX) that contains a patterned BOX...

journal article 2021

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Monolithic integration of a smart temperature sensor on a modular silicon-based organ-on-a-chip device

Martins Da Ponte, R. (author), Gaio, N. (author), van Zeijl, H.W. (author), Vollebregt, S. (author), Dijkstra, Paul (author), Dekker, R. (author), Serdijn, W.A. (author), Giagka, Vasiliki (author)

One of the many applications of organ-on-a-chip (OOC) technology is the study of biological processes in human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) during pharmacological drug screening. It is of paramount importance to construct OOCs equipped with highly compact in situ sensors that can accurately monitor, in real time, the extracellular...

journal article 2021

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Tunable coupling of two mechanical resonators by a graphene membrane

Verbiest, G.J. (author), Goldsche, M. (author), Sonntag, J. (author), Khodkov, T. (author), von den Driesch, N. (author), Buca, D. (author), Stampfer, C. (author)

Coupled nanomechanical resonators are interesting for both fundamental studies and practical applications as they offer rich and tunable oscillation dynamics. At present, the mechanical coupling in such systems is often mediated by a fixed geometry, such as a joint clamping point of the resonators or a displacement-dependent force. Here we...

journal article 2021

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On resonances in a weakly nonlinear microbeam due to an electric actuation

Harjanto, Eric (author), van Horssen, W.T. (author), Tuwankotta, Johan M. (author)

In this paper, the oscillations of an actuated, simply supported microbeam are studied for which it is assumed that the electric load is composed of a small DC polarization voltage and a small, harmonic AC voltage. Bending stiffness and mid-plane stretching are taken into account as well as small viscous or structural damping. No tensile...

journal article 2021

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Sub-Orbital Flight Demonstration of a 183/540–600 GHz Hybrid CMOS-InP and CMOS-Schottky-MEMS Limb-Sounder

Tang, Adrian (author), Alonso Del Pino, M. (author), Kim, Yanghyo (author), Zhang, Yan (author), Reck, Theodore (author), Jung-Kubiak, Cecile (author), Nemchick, Deacon (author), Dyer, Logan (author), Virbila, Gabriel (author), Chattopadhyay, Goutam (author), Chang, Mau Chung Frank (author)

This paper presents an overview of a sub-orbital flight demonstration with a 183 GHz and 540–600 GHz limb-sounding instrument aboard a stratospheric ballooncraft. The 183 GHz band provides soundings of stratospheric H 2 O and is implemented with a hybrid CMOS-InP receiver architecture which provides excellent sensitivity while remaining compact ...

journal article 2021

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Surface-micromachined Silicon Carbide Pirani Gauges for Harsh Environments

Mo, J. (author), Middelburg, L.M. (author), Morana, B. (author), van Zeijl, H.W. (author), Vollebregt, S. (author), Zhang, Kouchi (author)

The application of pressure sensors in harsh environments is typically hindered by the stability of the material over long periods of time. This work focuses on the design and fabrication of surface micromachined Pirani gauges which are designed to be compatible with state-of-the-art Silicon Carbide CMOS technology. Such an integrated...

journal article 2021

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Toward a Self-Sensing Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor for all-SiC Monolithic Integration

Middelburg, L.M. (author), van Zeijl, H.W. (author), Vollebregt, S. (author), Morana, B. (author), Zhang, Kouchi (author)

This work focusses on the design and fabrication of surface micromachined pressure sensors, designed in a modular way for the integration with analog front-end read-out electronics. Polycrystalline 3C silicon carbide (SiC) was used to fabricate free-standing high topography cavities exploiting surface micromaching. The poly-SiC was in-situ...

journal article 2020

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Low power AlGaN/GaN MEMS pressure sensor for high vacuum application

Sun, J. (author), Hu, D. (author), Liu, Zewen (author), Middelburg, L.M. (author), Vollebregt, S. (author), Sarro, Pasqualina M (author), Zhang, Kouchi (author)

A micro-scale pressure sensor based on suspended AlGaN/GaN heterostructure is reported with non-linear sensitivity. By sealing the cavity, vacuum sensing at various temperatures was demonstrated. To validate the proposed concept of the AlGaN/GaN vacuum sensor, a 700 µm diameter circular membrane was electrically characterized under applied...

journal article 2020

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Dosed carbon precipitation and graphene layer number control on nickel micro-electromechanical systems surfaces

Gkouzou, A. (author), Janssen, G.C.A.M. (author), van Spengen, W.M. (author)

In this paper, we report on the in situ synthesis of graphene layers by means of chemical vapor deposition (CVD), directly on nickel micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) surfaces. We have developed MEMS structures of which the temperature can be increased locally by Joule heating while in a methane environment. For our MEMS structures, the...

journal article 2020

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Metal and Polymeric Strain Gauges for Si-based, Monolithically Fabricated Organs-on-Chips

Quiros Solano, W.F. (author), Gaio, N. (author), Silvestri, C. (author), Pandraud, G. (author), Dekker, R. (author), Sarro, Pasqualina M (author)

Organ-on-chip (OOC) is becoming the alternative tool to conventional in vitro screening. Heart-on-chip devices including microstructures for mechanical and electrical stimulation have been demonstrated to be advantageous to study structural organization and maturation of heart cells. This paper presents the development of metal and polymeric...

journal article 2019

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Novel method of alignment to buried cavities in cavity-SOI wafers for advanced MEMS devices

Mountain, Christopher (author), Kluba, M.M. (author), Bergers, L.I.J.C. (author), Snijder, Jaap (author), Dekker, R. (author)

Accurate alignment between the cavities in cavity-SOI (c-SOI) wafers and lithography on the wafer surface is essential to advanced MEMS production. Existing alignment methods are well defined, but often require specialized equipment or costly software packages available only in professional manufacturing environments. It would be beneficial...

journal article 2019

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A Platform for Mechano(-Electrical) Characterization of Free-Standing Micron-Sized Structures and Interconnects

Savov, A.M. (author), Joshi, S. (author), Shafqat, Salman (author), Hoefnagels, Johan (author), Louwerse, M.C. (author), Stoute, R. (author), Dekker, R. (author)

A device for studying the mechanical and electrical behavior of free-standing micro-fabricated metal structures, subjected to a very large deformation, is presented in this paper. The free-standing structures are intended to serve as interconnects in high-density, highly stretchable electronic circuits. For an easy, damage-free handling and...

journal article 2018

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Post-release deformation and motion control of photonic waveguide beams by tuneable electrothermal actuators in thick SiO₂

Wu, K. (author), Tichem, M. (author)

Photonic packaging, which includes high-precision assembly of photonic sub-systems, is currently a bottleneck in the development of commercially-available integrated photonic products. In the pursuit of a fully-automated, high-precision, and cost-effective photonic alignment scheme for two multi-channel photonic chips, this paper explores...

journal article 2018

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Vaporizing Liquid Microthrusters with integrated heaters and temperature measurement

de Athayde Costa e Silva, M. (author), Cordeiro Guerrieri, D. (author), van Zeijl, H.W. (author), Cervone, A. (author), Gill, E.K.A. (author)

This paper presents the results of design, manufacturing and characterization of Vaporizing Liquid Microthrusters (VLM) with integrated molybdenum heaters and temperature sensing. The thrusters use water as the propellant and are designed for use in CubeSats and PocketQubes. The devices are manufactured using silicon based MEMS (Micro Electro...

journal article 2017

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Effect of pressure on nonlinear dynamics and instability of electrically actuated circular micro-plates

Sajadi, B. (author), Alijani, F. (author), Goosen, J.F.L. (author), van Keulen, A. (author)

Characterization of nonlinear behavior of micro-mechanical components in MEMS applications plays an important role in their design process. In this paper, nonlinear dynamics, stability and pull-in mechanisms of an electrically actuated circular micro-plate subjected to a differential pressure are studied. For this purpose, a reduced-order...

journal article 2017

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A review on in situ stiffness adjustment methods in MEMS

de Laat, M.L.C. (author), Perez Garza, H.H. (author), Herder, J.L. (author), Ghatkesar, M.K. (author)

In situ stiffness adjustment in microelectromechanical systems is used in a variety of applications such as radio-frequency mechanical filters, energy harvesters, atomic force microscopy, vibration detection sensors. In this review we provide designers with an overview of existing stiffness adjustment methods, their working principle, and...

journal article 2016

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In-Plane Displacement Detection With Picometer Accuracy on a Conventional Microscope

Kokorian, J. (author), Buja, F. (author), Van Spengen, W.M. (author)

In this paper, we present a new method for detecting in-plane displacements in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) with an unprecedented sub-ångström accuracy. We use a curve-fitting method that is commonly employed in spectroscopy to find peak positions in a spectrum. We fit a function to the intensity profile of the image of a silicon beam...

journal article 2014

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6 DOF Force and Torque Sensor for Micro-manipulation Applications

Estevez, P. (author), Bank, J. (author), Porta, M. (author), Wei, J. (author), Sarro, P.M. (author), Tichem, M. (author), Staufer, U. (author)

This paper presents the design, fabrication and characterization of a piezoresistive 6 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) force and torque sensor to be used in micro-manipulation. The mechanical structure of the device consists of 7 suspended beams and a calibration structure, which can be replaced by micro-manipulation tools such as micro-grippers or...

journal article 2011