Roger T. Howe (Advisor)

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...

Optical MEMS for Free-Space Communication

Lixia Zhou
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Joseph M. Kahn
Roger T. Howe
Alice M. Agogino
2004
The convergence of MEMS technology with communication and digital circuitry makes high-speed, low power, free-space communication links over distances up to several km possible. MEMS corner cube retroreflectors (CCRs) are proposed to work as a passive optical transmitter, sending collected information back to an interrogating center. MEMS scanning microm...

Piezoelectric Aluminum Nitride Vibrating RF MEMS for Radio Front-End Technology

Gianluca Piazza
Albert P. Pisano
Roger T. Howe
Liwei Lin
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2005
The demand of consumer electronics for RF filters and frequency reference elements has focused attention on the reduction of size, power consumption and price and pushed current research interests towards the manufacturing of a single-chip, integrated RF solution. Vibrating contour-mode MEMS resonators constitute the most promising technology for ultimately realizing this vision. This dissertation presents analytical and experimental results on a new class...

Microfabricated Silicon High Aspect Ratio Flexures for In-Plane Motion

Christopher Guild Keller
Roger T. Howe
John W. Morris, Jr.
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Timothy D. Sands
1998

High aspect ratio microfabricated silicon flexures for in-plane motion were made by three methods: (1) 2-sided timed bulk etching in aqueous potassium hydroxide (KOH), (2) deep reactive ion etching (RB) with Cl2/He, and with SF6 (Bosch process), and (3) the hexsil ...

Microfabricated Electrostatic Actuators for Magnetic Disk Drives

David A. Horsley
Albert P. Pisano
Roberto Horowitz
Roger T. Howe
1998
This dissertation describes microfabricated electrostatic actuators which have been designed to serve as the secondary actuator in a dual-stage servo system for magnetic hard disk drives. Both translational and rotational designs are presented, each of which consists of a flexurally suspended ...

Micromachined Resonators

Dubravka Bilić
Roger T. Howe
Kristofer S. J. Pister
Roberto Horowitz
2001

In this work, we present approaches of making a micromachined resonators and oscillators. In the first study, we investigated the effects of anchoring on the resonator's performance. Using the Analog Devices BiMEMS integrated technology, double-ended tuning fork resonators have been fabricated with on-chip circuitry. The results show an improvement in the resonator's quality factor when using anchors with multiple contacts to the substrate. Resonators with frequencies up to 3MHz were tested at µTorr pressures to give quality factors as high as 58,000.

In order to reduce...

Capacitive Position-Sensing Interface for Micromachined Inertial Sensors

Xuesong Jiang
Bernhard E. Boser
Roger T. Howe
Roberto Horowitz
2003

A monolithic MEMS/circuits technology enables the implementation of multiple sensors and more functions, such as sensing, signal processing and actuation, on a single chip. In this work, issues related to monolithic integration of micromachined inertial sensors, including accelerometers and gyroscopes, are investigated. Mechanical sensitivity, noise, and experimental performance verification of the open-loop accelerometer are discussed. The resolution of a position-sensing accelerometer can be improved by increasing the mechanical sensitivity and the accuracy of position measurement. 1¹G=...