Liwei Lin (Advisor)

The main goal of this project is the development of water-powered microfluidic devices for diagnostic and drug delivery applications. Osmosis, capillarity, microfabrication, and polymer processing techniques are employed to design and fabricate microfluidic devices, including channels, actuators, valves, pumps, and flow discretizers. Because of the significant reduction on electricity consumption, water-powered microfluidic devices provide attractive alternatives for the realization of lower-power diagnostic and implantable drug delivery systems.

Project end date:...

This research aims to develop vertically supported microactuators and optical systems on a chip for MEMS and MOEMS applications that require motions of surface-micromachined microstructures or microoptical components. The fabrication process of microactuators is compatable with common MEMS fabrication process and IC manufacturing process, such as the CMOS process.

Project end date: 01/24/04

The objective of this project is to develop vertically driven comb actuators with self-aligned comb sets using a novel yet simple fabrication process and apply it to optical MEMS devices.

Project end date: 08/18/04

Micro relays powered by bi-directional electrothermal electromagnetic actuator has been designed, built and tested. Relays built using these actuators can have single pole double throw (SPDT) configuration. Bi-directional actuators can be used to make bi-stable relays, which only require power consumption during the switching operations. The relays built can switch both high current and high voltages. The off state resistance is over 100 Megaohm with a breakdown voltage exceeding 200V. The on state resistance is around 0.3 ohm can carry several amps before failure. The performance of...