XYZ on a Chip: Development and Fabrication of Three-Dimensional Microdevices

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The use of silicon-based technology, originally developed for microelectronics applica-tions, in the fabrication of microelectromechanical and microfluidic structures has usheredin a new era in which complex tasks can be performed by efficient, miniaturized devices.However, one limitation of the current generation of silicon-based technologies is that it isextraordinarily difficult to fabricate devices have a significant number (4) of functionallayers. The number of potential applications of microdevices would expand geometricallyif it were possible to fabricate microdevices that were not constricted by the present layer-by-layer fabrication scheme, but instead were truly three-dimensional.We are proposing to develop and utilize a completely new set of technologies for non-silicon-based microfabrication of true three-dimensional devices. Our scheme takes ad-vantageof multiphoton absorption (MPA) interactions that occur selectively at the tight fo-cusof a laser beam to attain high three-dimensional resolution. The proposed technologybegins with a nanoporous matrix that is solidified and etched selectively in different spatialareas, based on MPA, in order to create the three-dimensional template for a microdevice.Localized MPA-driven photodeposition and other MPA-driven photoreactions, photo-chemicalprocesses and photophysical processes are then used to create functional compo-nentswithin the matrix, with submicron feature sizes. Through these means, it will be pos-sibleto incorporate a wide variety of functionalities in a single, monolithic three-dimensionaldevice.Over the proposed three-year project period, we will develop MPA-based technologiesto make a broad range of functional fluidic, electronic, optical and mechanical components.These components will be combined to fabricate increasingly complex three-dimensionalmicrodevices that will allow for the miniaturization of technologically important tasks inareas such as combinatorial synthesis and screening of drug candidates and low-temperaturedevice physics. By the end of the project period we expect to be able to inte-gratesuch devices directly onto silicon-based microchips.