Publications

Micro-Optical Devices for Communications and Beyond

Meng-Hsiung Kiang
Kam Y. Lau
Richard S. Muller
Raymond Y. Chiao
1998
The area of micro-optics covers a variety of techniques used for developing miniaturized optical components and systems for applications ranging from optical communications and information processing and storage, to biomedical instrumentation...

Integrated Micromachinery -- Moving Structures on Silicon Chips

Long-Sheng Fan
Richard S. Muller
1990

Some basic issues of integrated micromachinery microassembly, material, and actuation, have been studied. This manuscript describes four new techniques in surface micromachining: l. in situ assembly and the use of multiple sacrificial layers, 2....

Selective Encapsulations of MEMS: Micro Channels, Needles, Resonators and Electromechanical Filters

Liwei Lin
Albert P. Pisano
Roger T. Howe
Van P. Carey
1993
Surface and combined surface/bulk micromachining techniques are developed for selectively encapsulated micro devices including micro flow channels, micro hypodermic needles, hermetically sealed lateral micro resonators and electromechanical filters. As part of...

Microscale and Nanoscale Neural Interfaces

Karen Chihrnin Cheung
Luke P. Lee
Rajendra Bhatnagar
Yang Dan
Albert P. Pisano
2002
In order to mitigate the effccts of neurological disability, new neural interfaces are actively being developed. We present several new neural interfaces which can be used in both implantable and on-chip devices. ...

MEMS Based Micro-Capillary Pumped Loop for Chip-Level Temperature Control

Jeffrey Alan Kirshberg
Dorian Liepmann
Ralph Greif
Luke P. Lee
Kirk Yerkes
2000

Utilizing current Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technologies, a three-port micro-capillary pumped loop (micro-CPL) was designed, fabricated and tested to provide integral cooling to electronics or MEMS type devices. The two wafer design consists of...

Liquid to Vapor Phase Change in Constant Cross-Section Silicon Microchannels

Brenda Haendler
Albert P. Pisano
Dorian Liepmann
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2003
This paper presents research on the evaporation of methanol/water mixtures in uniformly heated, constant cross-section, serpentine silicon microchannels for potential application as a fuel injection system for a MEMS rotary engine. The phase change of a variety of mixtures of methanol and water was observed, characterized and compared to the phase change both of pure water and pure methanol. Seven different fluids were tested: pure water, pure methanol and five different molar fractions of methanol mixed with water....

Solid Propellant Microrockets

Dana Teasdale
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Albert P. Pisano
2000

This paper details the design, fabrication and testing of millimeter scale solid propellant rockets for use as one-time deployment platforms carrying communication-equipped MEMS sensor systems, known as Smart Dust. Each rocket assembly is an integrated system, incorporating a combustion chamber, composite propellant grain, nozzle, igniter, and thermoelectric power converter. Solid propellant is advantageous for a millimeter-scale single-use device because of its simple implementation, unlike liquid propellants, which...

Sputter Deposition of Piezoelectric Lead Zirconate Titanate Thin Films for Use in MEMS Sensors and Actuators

Clifford Frederick Knollenberg
Timothy D. Sands
Richard M. White
Eugene, E. Haller
2001
This thesis describes the development of sputter-deposited piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate for sensing and actuation in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Piezoelectricity, the coupling of mechanical stress or strain and electric polarization observed in certain dielectric ceramics, is attractive for converting between electrical and mechanical energy in MEMS devices. While piezoelectric ZnO is currently used in MEMS devices such as the flexural plate wave device (FPW), replacing this layer with...

Algorithms for Position and Data Recovery in Wireless Sensor Networks

Lance Doherty
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Kannan Ramchandran
2000

Networks of hundreds or thousands of sensor nodes equipped with sensing, computing and communicationability are conceivable with recent technological advancement. Methods are presented in this report to recover and visualize data from wireless sensor networks, as well as to estimate node positions. Acommunication system is assumed wherein information from sensor nodes can be transferred to acentralized computer for data processing, though suggestions are made for extensions to distributed computation. Specifically, this...

Batch-Fabricated Ferromagnetic Microactuators with Silicon Flexures

Jack William Judy
Richard S. Muller
Richard M. White
Timothy D. Sands
1996
This manuscript investigates the use of magnetism and ferromagnetic materials in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and describes ways to integrate ferromagnetic materials with conventional silicon-based surface micromachining. Surface-microma-chined, batch-fabricated structures that combine plated-nickel and nickel-iron films with polysilicon mechanical flexures, are studied. The microstructures are constructed in a batch-fabrication process that uses electroplating and conventional lithography, materials,...