MICROMACHINING TECHNIQUES FOR FABRICATION OF MICRO AND NANO STRUCTURES Edited by Mojtaba Kahrizi Micromachining Techniques for Fabrication of Micro and Nano Structures Edited by Mojtaba Kahrizi Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. 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Publishing Process Manager Oliver Kurelic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer InTech Design Team First published January, 2012 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Micromachining Techniques for Fabrication of Micro and Nano Structures, Edited by Mojtaba Kahrizi p. cm. ISBN 978-953-307-906-6 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Chapter 1 Focused Ion Beam Based Three-Dimensional Nano-Machining 1 Gunasekaran Venugopal, Shrikant Saini and Sang-Jae Kim Chapter 2 Miniature Engineered Tapered Fiber Tip Devices by Focused Ion Beam Micromachining 17 Fei Xu, Jun-long Kou, Yan-qing Lu and Wei Hu Chapter 3 Fundamentals of Laser Ablation of the Materials Used in Microfluiducs 35 Tai-Chang Chen and Robert Bruce Darling Chapter 4 Microwave Meta-Material Absorbers Utilizing Laser Micro-Machining Technology 61 Hongmin Lee Chapter 5 Laser Micromachining and Micro-Patterning with a Nanosecond UV Laser 85 Xianghua Wang, Giuseppe Yickhong Mak and Hoi Wai Choi Chapter 6 Laser Ablation for Polymer Waveguide Fabrication 109 Shefiu S. Zakariyah Chapter 7 Micro Eletro Discharge Milling for Microfabrication 131 Mohammad Yeakub Ali, Reyad Mehfuz, Ahsan Ali Khan and Ahmad Faris Ismail Chapter 8 Mechanical Micromachining by Drilling, Milling and Slotting 159 T. Gietzelt and L. Eichhorn Chapter 9 Release Optimization of Suspended Membranes in MEMS 183 Salvador Mendoza-Acevedo, Mario Alfredo Reyes-Barranca, Edgar Norman Vázquez-Acosta, José Antonio Moreno-Cadenas and José Luis González-Vidal VI Contents Chapter 10 Micro Abrasive-Waterjet Technology 205 H T. Liu and E. Schubert Chapter 11 Electrochemical Spark Micromachining Process 235 Anjali Vishwas Kulkarni Chapter 12 Integrated MEMS: Opportunities & Challenges 253 P.J. French and P.M. Sarro Chapter 13 Modeling and Simulation of MEMS Components: Challenges and Possible Solutions 277 Idris Ahmed Ali Preface Making microsystems at a scale level of few microns is called micromachining. Micromachining is used to fabricate three-dimensional microstructures. It is the foundation of a technology called Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS). MEMS usually consist of three major parts: sensors, actuators, and an associate electronic circuitry that acts as the brain and controller of the whole system. There are two types of micromachining. Bulk micromachining starts with a silicon wafer or other substrate, which is selectively etched using dry or wet etching techniques, laser ablation, or focused ion beams. The most common substrate in this technology is single crystal silicon. Variation in the strength of bonds along various planes in this periodic structure makes it susceptible to etching with various rates along different crystal orientations. The wet anisotropic etching of silicon in hydroxide solutions, like potassium hydroxide (KOH) or tetra methyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH), is performed to etch silicon selectively along a specific orientation. Due to the high selective ratio, the etch rate varies along various orientations in this semiconductor, making it possible to design and fabricate many 3-D microstructures. This type of etching is inexpensive and is generally used in early, low-budget research. Although the wet etching is the most common practice in micromachining, dry etching techniques like laser ablation and focused ion beams, are also often used to produce microstructures. This technique is not only used to produce micro devices; it has now been extended to fabricate many devices at the level of nano scales. Another micromachining technique is surface micromachining, which involves fabrication of layers (usually using standard CMOS technology) on the surface of a substrate, followed by etching of the sacrificial layers. The purpose of this book is to introduce advances in micromachining technology. For this, we have gathered review articles related to various techniques and methods of micro/nano fabrications from esteemed researchers and scientists. The book consists of 13 chapters. The first two chapters demonstrate fabrication of several micro and nano devices using Focused Ion Beams techniques. The next five chapters are related to the application of lasers and laser ablation techniques used in bulk micromachining. Several other specialized methods and technologies are presented in the subsequent chapters. Throughout the book, each chapter gives a complete description of a specific X Preface micromachining method, design, associate analytical works, experimental set-up, and the final fabricated devices, followed by many references related to this field of research available in other literature. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of MEMS and nanotechnology, this collection of articles can be used by scientists and researchers in the disciplines of engineering, material sciences, physics and chemistry Mojtaba Kahrizi, Professor ECE Department, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada [...]... fabrication of micro- components of size in the range of 1 to 500 micrometers Their need arises from miniaturization of various devices in science and engineering, calling for ultra-precision manufacturing and micro -fabrication Micromachining is used for fabricating micro- channels and micro- grooves in micro- fluidics applications, micro- filters, drug delivery systems, micro- needles, and micro- probes... three-dimensional (3-D) micro- and nanostructures on thin films and single crystals by FIB etching have been developed in order to fabricate the 3-D sensor structures (Kim, 2008, 19 99) 2 Micromachining Techniques for Fabrication of Micro and Nano Structures In this chapter, the focused ion beam (FIB) based three-dimensional nano- machining will be discussed in detail in which the nano- machining procedures... with 12 μm accuracy Relative tolerances are typically 1/ 10 to 1/ 1000 of feature Absolute tolerances are typically similar to those for conventional precision machining (Micrometer to sub-micrometer) 2.2 Focused-ion-beam (FIB) technique for nanofabrication The focused ion beam based nanofabrication method can be followed for the fabricating the nanoscale devices on materials based on metal and non-metallic... FIB micro/ nano machining is a direct etching process without the use of masking and process chemicals, and demonstrates sub-micrometer resolution FIB etching equipments have shown potential for a variety of new applications, in the area of imaging and precision micromachining (Langford, 20 01; Seliger, 19 79) As a result, the FIB has recently become a popular candidate for fabricating high-quality micro- devices... 1 Focused Ion Beam Based Three-Dimensional Nano- Machining 1Jeju Gunasekaran Venugopal1,2, Shrikant Saini1 and Sang-Jae Kim1,3 National University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jeju, University, Department of Nanosciences and Technology, Tamil Nadu, 3Jeju National University, Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Jeju, 1, 3South Korea 2India 2Karunya 1 Introduction In recent days, the micro/ nano. .. fabricate nanoholes using electron beam lithography and the 6 Micromachining Techniques for Fabrication of Micro and Nano Structures minimal feature size accessible by these techniques is typically limited to tens of nanometers, thus novel procedures must be devised (Zhou, 2006) The patterning of samples using the FIB (focused ion beam) technique is a very popular technique in the field of inspection of integrated... ion beam and milling along abplane (d) The sample stage rotated by an angle of 18 0° and also tilted by 60° anticlockwise with respect to ion beam and milled along the c-axis 8 Micromachining Techniques for Fabrication of Micro and Nano Structures The in-plane etching process is shown in Fig 3(a)–(c) The out of plane or the c-axis plane was fabricated by rotating the sample stage by an angle of 18 0°,... crystal silicon For example, silicon cantilever beam for atomic force microscope (AFM) Surface micro- machining is another new technique/process for producing MEMS structures This uses etching techniques to pattern micro- scale structures from polycrystalline (poly) silicon, or metal alloys Example: accelerometers, pressure sensors, micro gears and transmission, and micro mirrors etc Micromachining has... particularly advantageous for the industry that develops/fabricates nano/ micron scale components 2 .1 Various techniques of micromachining Micromachining can be done by following various techniques a Photolithography b Etching c LIGA d Laser Ablation e Mechanical micromachining Photolithography This technique is being used in microelectronics fabrication and also used to pattern oxide/nitride/polysilicon films... not capable of making true 3D structures e.g free form surfaces and also limited in range of materials Mechanical machining is capable of making free form surfaces in wide range of materials Can we scale conventional/non-traditional machining processes down to the micron level? Yes! There are two approaches used to machine micron and sub-micron scale features 1 Design ultra precision (nanometer positioning . MICROMACHINING TECHNIQUES FOR FABRICATION OF MICRO AND NANO STRUCTURES Edited by Mojtaba Kahrizi Micromachining Techniques for Fabrication of Micro and Nano Structures. lithography and the Micromachining Techniques for Fabrication of Micro and Nano Structures 6 minimal feature size accessible by these techniques is typically limited to tens of nanometers,. science and engineering, calling for ultra-precision manufacturing and micro -fabrication. Micromachining is used for fabricating micro- channels and micro- grooves in micro- fluidics applications, micro- filters,