The scaling down of electromechanical devices from micrometer scales to nano scales is of great interest. This paper presents fabrication and characterization of sub-micron high aspect ratio metallic electrothermal actuators using a combination of electron beam lithography and electroplating techniques. A 1.2 µm thick SU-8 layer was used as a sacrificial layer and a 1 µm thick electron beam lithography-processed polymethyl methacrylate resist was used to form 3:1 aspect ratio sub-micron (minimum feature size of 350 nm) electroplated nickel electrothermal actuators. Such sub-micron electrothermal actuators were characterized by a nanomanipulator system in a scanning electron microscopy system. Electro-thermo-mechanical finite element analysis (FEA) of the actuator using ANSYS was carried out and the FEA results were in good agreement with the measured results. Displacements at the tip of the actuator of 370 nm were reproducibly observed with the applied voltages of 145 mV. This work can be applied to realize more sophisticated nano actuators which can manipulate sub-micron scale objects.
This paper presents a novel pattern transfer process of LIGA and UV-LIGA MEMS onto CMOS chips using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) replication and electroplating-based post-IC integration techniques. An array of cylindrical posts was fabricated by the standard LIGA process and an inverse replica was made using a PDMS replication technique. The replicated PDMS mold was used to transfer the LIGA MEMS onto a CMOS chip using electroplating. For the pattern transfer of UV-LIGA MEMS onto CMOS chips, double-layered circular spiral inductors were fabricated using the UV-LIGA technique as metallic master molds. Inverse replicas of the inductors were built in PDMS as double-layered PDMS electroplating mold (PEM). This PEM was aligned and attached onto the chips, and electroplating was performed to transfer the metallic UV-LIGA MEMS inductors onto the chips. The transferred inductors showed a self-resonant frequency of 7.5 GHz, an inductance of 2.11 nH, and a Q-factor of 78.9 at 0.6 GHz.
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