SGER: Manufacturing Massively Parallel Microelectro- mechanical Arrays for Macroscopic Actuation

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9317937 Bifano The award is for investigating issues in the manufacture of massively parallel, microelectromechanical systems by using semiconductor fabrication technology. Arrays of electrostatically actuated diaphragms have been manufactured by such a process, and will be evaluated for actuator mechanical characteristics and process yield. The production of optical quality surfaces on such multi actuator wafers by precision diamond grinding will also be investigated, as the initial application to be investigated is adaptive optical compensation of telescopes. Successful completion of the research would enable precise, fine, distributed actuation which would benefit a variety of applications. Examples of such applications are a multi zone deformable mirror to be used for adaptive optical compensation of telescopes, and multi gate flow control valve for precise control of very low liquid flow rates in semiconductor, biomedical and chemical applications.