CAREER: Application of Ultrasonic Pulses to MEMS

该技术将压电板集成到MEMS衬底上，以产生入射在表面微机械上的超声应力脉冲。压电板驱动器可以将能量从基底底部传递到表面微机械，从而使二维表面微机械具有三维性。该提案的重点是使用超声波脉冲能量来解决使MEMS更加实用的两个挑战。第一是对粘附表面的微机械进行去粘，以解决使用中的静摩擦问题。第二个是致动铰链表面微机械，使大规模并行组装和表面微机械的致动。为了探索该技术的极限，将开发脉冲生成的分析和数值模型。这些模型将用于设计电子电路和致动器结构，这些结构将有效地将能量耦合到表面微机械。所开发的技术将使任何表面微机械工艺制造的表面微机械实现无互连致动。 意识到美国工业需要更多的MEMS学生比可以产生的美国研究生课程，MEMS领域起源于微电子制造社区，一个计划，吸收MEMS概念到核心微电子课程将实施。将与非MEMS教师合作，融入部门核心课程。该战略应导致MEMS专门知识在所有电气工程师采取微电子课程。MEMS知识在广泛社区中的大规模扩散将使工业设计团队更容易使用MEMS器件，为MEMS大规模进入日常技术铺平道路。在BioMEMS课程侧重于化学，生物学和流体力学的基础将开发电气工程专业的学生。

The proposed technology integrates piezoelectric plates onto MEMS substrates to generate ultrasonic stress pulses incident on surface micromachines. The piezoelectric plate actuators can deliver energy from the bottom of the substrate to surface micromachines, giving three dimensionality to two-dimensional sur-face micromachines. The proposal focuses on using the ultrasonic pulse energy to address two challenges in making MEMS more practical. The first is to de-stick stuck surface micromachines to solve the in-use stiction problem. The second is to actuate hinged surface micromachines to enable massively parallel assembly and actuation of surface micromachines. In order to explore the ultimate limits of the technology, analytical and numerical models of the pulse generation will be developed. These models will be used to design electronic circuits and actuator struc-tures that are efficient couple energy to surface micromachines. The techniques developed will enable interconnect-less actuation of surface micromachines made by any surface micromachine process. Realizing that the US industry needs many more MEMS students than can be generated by the US grad-uate programs, and that the MEMS field originated from the microelectronics fabrication community, a plan to assimilate MEMS concepts into core microelectronics courses will be implemented. Assimilation into department core courses in cooperation with non-MEMS faculty will be conducted. The strategy should result in MEMS know-how in all electrical engineers taking microelectronics courses. This massive proliferation of MEMS knowledge in a broad community will allow industrial design teams to use MEMS devices more readily, paving the way for large scale entry of MEMS into everyday technology. A course in BioMEMS focused on fundamentals of chemistry, biology, and fluid mechanics will be developed for electrical engineering students.