Encyclopedia of Smart Materials (Vols 1 and 2) - M. Schwartz (2002) Episode 8 doc

P1: FCH/FYX P2: FCH/FYX QC: FCH/UKS T1: FCH PB091-M-drv January 12, 2002 1:4 644 MICROTUBES 48. A.D. Johnson, and V.V. Martynov, Proc. 2nd Int. Conf. Shape Memory Superelastic Technol., Pacific Grove, CA, 1997, pp. 149–154. 49. M. Kohl, K.D. Strobanek, and S. Miyasaki, Sensors and Actua- tors A72: 243–250 (1999). 50. Y. Bellouard, T. Lehnert, T. Sidler, R. Gotthardt, and R. Clavel, Mater. Res. Soc. Mater. Smart Syst. III 604: 177–182 (2000). 51. Y. Bellouard, T. Lehnert, J E. Bidaux, T. Sidler, R. Clavel, and R. Gotthardt, Mater. Sci. Eng. A273–275: 733–737 (1999). 52. K. Kuribayashi, S. Shimizu, M. Yoshitake, and S. Ogawa, Proc. 6th Int. Symp. Micro Mach. Hum. Sci. Piscataway, NJ, 1995, pp. 103–110. 53. S.T. Smith and D.G. Chetwynd, Gordon and Breach, 1994. 54. J.M. Paros and L. Weisborg, Mach. Design 27: 151–156 (1965). 55. Y. Bellouard, Ph.D. Thesis, Lausanne, EPFL, n ◦ 2308 (2000). 56. W. Nix, Scripta Materialia, 39(4/5): 545–554 (1998). 57. R.D. James, Int. J. Solids Struct. 37: 239–250 (2000). 58. R. Gorbet, Ph. D. Thesis, University of Waterloo, 1997. MICROTUBES WESLEY P. H OFFMAN Air Force Research Laboratory AFRL/PRSM Edwards AFB, CA PHILLIP G. WAPNER ERC Inc. Edwards AFB, CA INTRODUCTION Background Microtubes are very small diameter tubes (in the nanome- ter and micron range) that have very high aspect ratios and can be made from practically any material in any combination of cross-sectional and axial shape desired. In smart structures, these microscopic tubes can function as sensors and actuators, as well as components of fluidic logic systems. In many technological fields, including smart structures, microtube technology enables fabricating com- ponents and devices that have, to date, been impossible to produce, offers a lower cost route for fabricating some cur- rent products, and provides the opportunity to miniaturize numerous components and devices that are currently in existence. In recent years, there has been tremendous interest in miniaturization due to the high payoff involved. The most graphic example that can be cited occurred in the electron- ics industry, which only 50 years ago relied exclusively on the vacuum tube for numerous functions. The advent of the transistor in 1947 and its gradual replacement of the vacuum tube started a revolution in miniaturization that was inconceivable at the time of its invention and is not fully recognized even many years later. Miniaturization resulted in the possibility for billions of transistors to occupy the volume of a vacuum tube or the first transistor, and it was not the only consequence. The subsequent spin-off developments in allied areas, such as integrated circuits and the microprocessor, have spawned entirely new fields of technology. It is quite likely that other areas are now poised for revolutionary developments that parallel those that have occurred in the electronics indus- try since the advent of the first transistor. These areas include microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and closely related fields, such as microfluidics and micro-optical systems. Currently, these technologies involve micromachining on a silicon chip to produce nu- merous types of devices, such as sensors, detectors, gears, engines, actuators, valves, pumps, motors, and mirrors on a micron scale. The first commercial product to arise from MEMS was the accelerometer that was manufactured as a sensor for air-bag actuation. On the market today are also microfluidic devices, mechanical resonators, biosensors for glucose, and disposable blood pressure sensors that are in- serted into the body. The vast majority of microsystems are made almost ex- clusively on planar surfaces using technology developed to fabricate electronic integrated circuits. The fabrication of these devices takes place on a silicon wafer, and the de- vice is formed layer-by-layer using standard clean-room techniques that include electron beams or photolithogra- phy, thin-film deposition, and wet or dry etching (both isotropic and anisotropic). Three variations of this conven- tional electronic chip technology can be used, for example, to make three-dimensional structures that have high as- pect ratios and suspended beams. These include the LIGA (lithographie, galvanoformung, abformung) process (1,2), the Hexsil process (3), and the SCREAM (single-crystal reactive etching and metallization) process (4). The tech- nique most employed, the LIGA process, which was de- veloped specifically for MEMS-type applications, can con- struct and metallize high-aspect-ratio microfeatures. This is done by applying and exposing a very thick X-ray sen- sitive photoresist layer to synchrotron radiation. Features up to 600 microns high that have aspect ratios of 300 to 1 can be fabricated by this technique to make truly three- dimensional objects. The Hexsil process uses a mold that has a sacrificial layer of silicon dioxide to form polysili- con structures that are released by removing the silicon dioxide film. A third approach is the SCREAM bulk mi- cromachining process that can fabricate high-aspect-ratio single-crystal silicon suspended microstructures from a sil- icon wafer using anisotropic reactive ion etching. Note, however, thatlike the conventional technique usedto make electronic circuits, all of these variations use a layered ap- proach that starts on a flat surface. In addition,there aresome disadvantages of the conven- tional electronic chip fabrication technique and its modifi- cations, even though there have been numerous and very innovative successes using these silicon wafer-based tech- nologies. This is due to the fact that these technologies require building up many layers of different materials as well as surface and bulk micromachining which leads to some very difficult material science problems that have to be solved. These include differential etching and laying down one material without damaging any previous layer. In addition, there are the problems of interconnecting lay- ers in a chip that have different functions. An example of this is a microfluidic device in which there are both fluidic Next Page P1: FCH/FYX P2: FCH/FYX QC: FCH/UKS T1: FCH PB091-M-drv January 12, 2002 1:4 644 MICROTUBES Previous Page 48. A.D. Johnson, and V.V. Martynov, Proc. 2nd Int. Conf. Shape Memory Superelastic Technol., Pacific Grove, CA, 1997, pp. 149–154. 49. M. Kohl, K.D. Strobanek, and S. Miyasaki, Sensors and Actua- tors A72: 243–250 (1999). 50. Y. Bellouard, T. Lehnert, T. Sidler, R. Gotthardt, and R. Clavel, Mater. Res. Soc. Mater. Smart Syst. III 604: 177–182 (2000). 51. Y. Bellouard, T. Lehnert, J E. Bidaux, T. Sidler, R. Clavel, and R. Gotthardt, Mater. Sci. Eng. A273–275: 733–737 (1999). 52. K. Kuribayashi, S. Shimizu, M. Yoshitake, and S. Ogawa, Proc. 6th Int. Symp. Micro Mach. Hum. Sci. Piscataway, NJ, 1995, pp. 103–110. 53. S.T. Smith and D.G. Chetwynd, Gordon and Breach, 1994. 54. J.M. Paros and L. Weisborg, Mach. Design 27: 151–156 (1965). 55. Y. Bellouard, Ph.D. Thesis, Lausanne, EPFL, n ◦ 2308 (2000). 56. W. Nix, Scripta Materialia, 39(4/5): 545–554 (1998). 57. R.D. James, Int. J. Solids Struct. 37: 239–250 (2000). 58. R. Gorbet, Ph. D. Thesis, University of Waterloo, 1997. MICROTUBES WESLEY P. H OFFMAN Air Force Research Laboratory AFRL/PRSM Edwards AFB, CA PHILLIP G. WAPNER ERC Inc. Edwards AFB, CA INTRODUCTION Background Microtubes are very small diameter tubes (in the nanome- ter and micron range) that have very high aspect ratios and can be made from practically any material in any combination of cross-sectional and axial shape desired. In smart structures, these microscopic tubes can function as sensors and actuators, as well as components of fluidic logic systems. In many technological fields, including smart structures, microtube technology enables fabricating com- ponents and devices that have, to date, been impossible to produce, offers a lower cost route for fabricating some cur- rent products, and provides the opportunity to miniaturize numerous components and devices that are currently in existence. In recent years, there has been tremendous interest in miniaturization due to the high payoff involved. The most graphic example that can be cited occurred in the electron- ics industry, which only 50 years ago relied exclusively on the vacuum tube for numerous functions. The advent of the transistor in 1947 and its gradual replacement of the vacuum tube started a revolution in miniaturization that was inconceivable at the time of its invention and is not fully recognized even many years later. Miniaturization resulted in the possibility for billions of transistors to occupy the volume of a vacuum tube or the first transistor, and it was not the only consequence. The subsequent spin-off developments in allied areas, such as integrated circuits and the microprocessor, have spawned entirely new fields of technology. It is quite likely that other areas are now poised for revolutionary developments that parallel those that have occurred in the electronics indus- try since the advent of the first transistor. These areas include microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and closely related fields, such as microfluidics and micro-optical systems. Currently, these technologies involve micromachining on a silicon chip to produce nu- merous types of devices, such as sensors, detectors, gears, engines, actuators, valves, pumps, motors, and mirrors on a micron scale. The first commercial product to arise from MEMS was the accelerometer that was manufactured as a sensor for air-bag actuation. On the market today are also microfluidic devices, mechanical resonators, biosensors for glucose, and disposable blood pressure sensors that are in- serted into the body. The vast majority of microsystems are made almost ex- clusively on planar surfaces using technology developed to fabricate electronic integrated circuits. The fabrication of these devices takes place on a silicon wafer, and the de- vice is formed layer-by-layer using standard clean-room techniques that include electron beams or photolithogra- phy, thin-film deposition, and wet or dry etching (both isotropic and anisotropic). Three variations of this conven- tional electronic chip technology can be used, for example, to make three-dimensional structures that have high as- pect ratios and suspended beams. These include the LIGA (lithographie, galvanoformung, abformung) process (1,2), the Hexsil process (3), and the SCREAM (single-crystal reactive etching and metallization) process (4). The tech- nique most employed, the LIGA process, which was de- veloped specifically for MEMS-type applications, can con- struct and metallize high-aspect-ratio microfeatures. This is done by applying and exposing a very thick X-ray sen- sitive photoresist layer to synchrotron radiation. Features up to 600 microns high that have aspect ratios of 300 to 1 can be fabricated by this technique to make truly three- dimensional objects. The Hexsil process uses a mold that has a sacrificial layer of silicon dioxide to form polysili- con structures that are released by removing the silicon dioxide film. A third approach is the SCREAM bulk mi- cromachining process that can fabricate high-aspect-ratio single-crystal silicon suspended microstructures from a sil- icon wafer using anisotropic reactive ion etching. Note, however, thatlike the conventional technique usedto make electronic circuits, all of these variations use a layered ap- proach that starts on a flat surface. In addition,there aresome disadvantages of the conven- tional electronic chip fabrication technique and its modifi- cations, even though there have been numerous and very innovative successes using these silicon wafer-based tech- nologies. This is due to the fact that these technologies require building up many layers of different materials as well as surface and bulk micromachining which leads to some very difficult material science problems that have to be solved. These include differential etching and laying down one material without damaging any previous layer. In addition, there are the problems of interconnecting lay- ers in a chip that have different functions. An example of this is a microfluidic device in which there are both fluidic P1: FCH/FYX P2: FCH/FYX QC: FCH/UKS T1: FCH PB091-M-drv January 12, 2002 1:4 MICROTUBES 645 and electronic functions. Clearly, there are numerous ma- terials issues central to this technology. Other technologies are available that, like conventional lithography, can constructor replicate microscopicfeatures on a flat surface. These approaches include imprint lith- ography that involves compression molding (5), lasers (6– 8), ion beams (9) and electron beam (10) micro-machining, soft lithography (11), writing features into the surface us- ing an atomic force microscope (12,13), and very limited application of deposition using a scanning tunneling mi- croscope (14,15). The majority of these technologies are not discussed in detail because there is not a close link to mi- crotube technology. In addition to the processing problems mentioned be- fore, there are other limitations inherent in conventional lithographic techniques that are based on planar silicon. For example, in some applications such as those that in- volve surface tension in fluidics, it is important to have a circular cross section. However, it is impossible to make a perfectly round tube or channel on a chip by conven- tional technology. Instead, channels on the wafer surface are made by etching a trench and then covering the trench by using a plate (16,17). This process can produce only an- gled channels such as those that have a square, rectan- gular, or triangular cross section. Because of the limita- tions already mentioned, we heartily agree with Wise and Najafi in their review of microfabrication technology (18) when they stated, “The planar nature of silicon technology is a major limitation for many future systems, including microvalves and pumps.” In the literature, there are at least two technologies in addition to microtubes that remove microfabrication from the flatland of the wafer. One uses “soft lithography,” and the other uses laser-assisted chemical vapor deposition (LCVD). “Soft lithography,” conceived and developed by Whitesides’ outstanding group at Harvard, encompasses a series of very novel related technologies that include micro- contact printing, micromolding, and micromolding in cap- illaries (11). These technologies can fabricate structures from several different materials on flat and curved sur- faces. By example, structures can be fabricated using mi- crocontact printing by first making a stamp that contains the desired features. This stamp, which is usually made from poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) has raised features placed on the surface by photolithographic techniques. The raised features are “inked” with an alkanethiol and then brought into contact with a gold-coated surface, for ex- ample, by rolling the curved surface over the stamp. The gold is then etched where there is no self-assembled mono- layer of alkanethiolate. Features as small as 200 nm can be formed by this technique. However, the microstruc- tures produced by this technique are the same as those produced by standard techniques, except that the start- ing surface need not be flat. By using these techniques, submicron features can be fabricated on flat or curved substrates made of materials, such as metals (19), poly- mers (20), and carbon (21). In addition, these technologies can be used to make truly three-dimensional free-standing objects (22,23). Another step away from the standard planar silicon technology is the LCVD process (24,25) which can “write in space” to produce three-dimensional microsystems. In this process, two intersecting laser beams are focused in a very small volume in a low-pressure chamber. The surface of the substrate on which deposition is to occur is brought to the focal point of the lasers. The power to the lasers is adjusted so that deposition from the gas phase occurs only at the intersection of the beams. As deposition occurs on the substrate surface, it is pulled away from the focal point. Under computer control, the substrate can be mani- pulated so that complex, free-standing, three-dimensional microstructures can be fabricated. In addition to LCVD and soft lithography, only mi- crotube technology offers the possibility of truly three- dimensional nonplanar microsystems. However, in con- trast to these two technologies, microtube technology also offers the ability to make microdevices from practically any material because the technology isnot limited by electrode- position or the availability of CVD precursor materials. In addition, in contrast to these other technologies, microtube technology provides the opportunity to make tubing and also to make it in a variety of cross-sectional and axial shapes that can be used to miniaturize systems, connect components, and fabricate components or systems that are not currently possible to produce. Microscopic and Nanoscopic Tubes and Tubules Commercially, tubing is extruded, drawn, pultruded, or rolled and welded which limits the types of materials that can be used for ultrasmall tubes as well as their ultimate internal diameters. In addition, it is not currently possi- ble to control the wall thickness, internal diameter, or the surface roughness of the inner wall of these tubes to a frac- tion of a micron by these techniques. Using conventional techniques, ceramic tubes are currently available only as small as 1 mm i.d. Copper tubing can be obtained as small as 0.05 mm i.d., polyimide tubing is fabricated as small as 50 µm i.d., and quartz tubing is drawn down as small as 2 µm i.d. This means that quartz is the only tubing com- mercially available that is less than 10µm i.d. This quartz tubing is used principally for chromatography. There are, however, other sources of small tubing that are presently at various stages of research and develop- ment. For some time, several groups have been using lipids as templates (26–28) to fabricate submicron diameter tub- ing. These tubes are made by using electroless deposi- tion to metallize a tubular lipid structure formed from a Langmuir–Blodgett film. Lipid templated tubes are very uniform in diameter, which is fixed at ∼0.5 µm by the lipid structure. Lengths to 100 µm have been obtained by this technique which is extremely expensive due to the cost of the raw materials. Other groups are making submicron diameter tubules using a membrane-based synthetic approach. This method involves depositing the desired tubule material within the cylindrical pores of a nanoporous membrane. Commercial “track-etch” polymeric membranes and anodic aluminum oxide films have been used as the porous substrate. Aluminum oxide, which is electrochemically etched, has been the preferred substrate because pores of uniform diameter can be made from 5–1000 nm. Martin (29–31) polymerized electrically conductive polymers from the liq- uid phase and electrochemically deposited metal in the P1: FCH/FYX P2: FCH/FYX QC: FCH/UKS T1: FCH PB091-M-drv January 12, 2002 1:4 646 MICROTUBES pore structure of the membrane. Kyotani et al. (32,33) de- posited pyrolytic carbon inside the pores of the same type of alumina substrate. In each case, after the inside walls of the porous membrane are covered to the desired thickness, the porous membrane is dissolved leaving the tubules. A variation of this technique, used by Hoyer (34,35) to form semiconductor (CdS, TiO 2 , and WO 3 ) nanotubes, includes an additional step. Instead of coating the pore wall directly to form the tubule, he fills the pore with a sacrificial mate- rial, solvates the membrane, and then coats the sacrificial material with the material for the nanotube wall. The sac- rificial material is finally removed to form the nanotube. As in the lipid process, all of the tubules formed by this process in a single membrane are uniform in diameter, length, and thickness. But in contrast to the lipid process, the diameter of the tubules can be varied by the extent of oxidation of the aluminum substrate. Although diameters can be var- ied in this process, it should be clear that these tubules are limited in length to the thickness of the porous membrane. In addition, the wall thickness is also limited in that the sum of the inside tubule diameter and two times the wall thickness is equal to the starting pore diameter. Using a sol-gel method, tubules can be made in about the same diameter range as in the membrane approach. By hydrolyzing tetraethlyorthosilicate at room tempera- ture in a mixture of ethanol, ammonia, water and tartaric acid, Nakamuraand Matsui(36) made silica tubes that had both square and round interiors. The tubules produced by this technique were up to 300 µm long, and the i.d. of the tubes ranged from 0.02 to 0.8 µm. By introducing minute bubbles into the sol, hollow TiO 2 fibers that have internal diameters up to 100 µm have also been made (37) by using the sol-gel approach. On an even smaller scale, nanotubules are fabricated using anumber of very different techniques. Themost well- known tube in this category is the carbon “buckytube” that is a cousin of the C 60 buckyball (38–42). Since carbon nano- tubes were first observed as a by-product in C 60 production, the method of C 60 formation using an arc-discharge plasma was modified to enhance nanotube production. The process produces tubules whose i.d. is in the range of 1–30 nm. These tubules are also limited in length to about 20 mi- crons. Similar nanotubes of BN (43), B 3 C, and BC 2 N (44) have been made by a very similar arc-discharge process. In addition, nanotubes of other compositions (45,46) have been prepared using carbon nanotubes as a substrate for conversion or deposition. An alternative technique for manufacturing carbon tubes that have nanometer diameters has been known to the carbon community for decades from the work of Bacon, Baker, and others (47–50). The process produces a hol- low catalytic carbon fiber by pyrolyzing a hydrocarbon gas over a catalyst particle. The fibers, which vary in diame- ter from 1 nm to 0.1 µm have lengths up to centimeters, can be grown either hollow or has an amorphous center that can be removed by catalytic oxidation after a fiber is formed. Other nanoscale tubules whose diameters are slightly larger and smaller than buckytubes have been made from bacteria and components of cytoskeletons and by direct chemical syntheses. Chow and others (51) isolated and purified nanoscale protein tubules called rhapidosomes from the bacterium Aquaspirillum itersonii. After the rhapidosomes are metallized by electroless deposition and the bacteria are removed, metal tubules approximately 17 nm in diameter and 400 nm long are produced. Us- ing a similar metallization technique, metal tubes have been fabricated (52) whose inner diameters are 25 nm by using biological microtubules as templates. These micro- tubules, which are protein filaments of 25 nm o.d. and whose lengths are measured in microns, are components of the cytoskeletons of eukaryotic cells. In contrast to tubules produced from biological templates, the tubules produced by direct chemical synthesis involve using the technique of molecular self-assembly. Some of the nanotubules that fall into this category are made from cyclic peptides (53), cy- clodextrins (54), and bolaamphiphiles (55). Cyclic peptide nanotubules have an 0.8 nm i.d: and can be made several microns in length. Other self-assembled nanotubules that range from 0.45 to 0.85 nm i.d. have been synthesized from cyclodextrins (54,56) in lengths in the tens of nanometers. Although it is clear that individual nanotubules are cur- rently useful for certain applications, such as encapsula- tion, reinforcement, or as scanning probe microscope tips (57), it is not obvious how individual nanotubules can be observed and economically manipulated for use in devices other thanby usinga scanningprobe microscope(58). Until this problem is solved, the future of individual nanotubes in devices is uncertain. However, this problem can be cir- cumvented if the nanotubules are part of a larger body such as in an array. If oriented groups or arrays of submicron to micron dia- meter tubes or channels perpendicular to the surface of the wafer or device are desired, there are at least four means available to make them. Using the technique described be- fore for making anodic porous alumina, a two step repli- cation process (59) can be used to fabricate a highly or- dered honeycomb nanohole array from gold or platinum. The metalhole array isfrom 1–3 micronthick and hasholes 70 nanometers in diameter. For smaller tubes or channels, a technique (60) has recently been developed to draw down bundles of quartz tubes to form an array. This process pro- duces a hexagonal array of glass tubes each as small as 33 nm in diameter. This translates to a density of 3×10 10 channels per square centimeter. Even smaller regular ar- rays of channels can be synthesized by a liquid crystal template mechanism (61,62). In this process, aluminum silicate gels are calcined in the presence of surfactants to produce channels 2–10 nm in diameters. Finally, channels of ∼4 nm in cross section can be produced (63) perpendicu- larly to the surface of an amorphous silica film by forming hematite crystals in a Fe–Si–O film and then etching away the hematite crystals. Finally, several technologies exist to make channels or layers of channels of desired orientation in solid objects. These technologies are another spin-off of the photolitho- graphic process used for integrated circuits. On a two- dimensional plane, channels that range in size from tens to hundreds of microns in width and depth have been fab- ricated (16,17) on the surface of silicon wafers by stan- dard microphotolithographic techniques. Forming of mi- croscopic channels and holes in other materials originated P1: FCH/FYX P2: FCH/FYX QC: FCH/UKS T1: FCH PB091-M-drv January 12, 2002 1:4 MICROTUBES 647 in the rocket propulsion community in 1964. Work at Aerojet Inc. (64) produced metallic injectors and cooling channels in metallic parts using a process that included photolithographic etching of thin metallic platelets and stacking the platelets followed by diffusion bonding of the platelets to form a solid metallic object that has micron- sized channels. The group at Aerojet has recently modified its technique to use silicon nitride. Variations on this tech- nique include electrochemical micromachining and sheet architecture technology. Electrochemical micromachining (65,66) avoids gener- ating toxic waste from acid etching by making the thin metal part covered with exposed photoresist the anode in an electrochemical cell where a nontoxic salt solution is the electrolyte. Sheet architecture technology (67) developed at Pacific Northwest National laboratory is used to fabri- cate numerous microscopic chemical and thermal systems, such as reactors, heat pumps, heat exchangers, and heat absorbers. These devices may consist of a single photolitho- graphically etched or laser-machined laminate that has a cover bonded to seal the channels, as described before, or may consist of multiple layers of plastic or metal laminates bonded together. It is quite apparent from this brief and incomplete review, that a number of very novel and innovative ap- proaches have been used to make microsystems as well as tubes and channels whose diameters are in the range of nanometers to microns. In the next section, the basics of microtube technology which complements these other technologies are discussed. AFRL MICROTUBE TECHNOLOGY Properties and Production of Microtubes Except for self-assembled tubules, the microtube tech- nology developed at the Propulsion Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) can produce tubes in the size range of those made by all of the other techniques cited. In contrast to tubing currently on the market and the submicron laboratory scale tubing mentioned before, microtubes can be made from practically any material (in- cluding smart materials) and will have precisely controlled composition, diameter, and wall thickness in a great range of lengths. In addition, this technology can produce tubes in a great diversity of axial and cross-sectional geometries. For most materials, there is no upper diameter limit, and for practically any material, internal diameters greater than 5 µm are possible. In addition, for materials that can survive temperatures higher than 400 ◦ C, tubes can be made as small as 5 nanometers by using the same process. To date, tubes have been made from metals (copper, nickel, aluminum, gold, platinum, and silver), ceramics (silicon carbide, carbon, silicon nitride, alumina, zirconia, and sapphire), glasses (silica), polymers (Teflon), alloys (stainless steel), and layered combinations (carbon/nickel and silver/sapphire) in sizes from 0.5–410 µm. Like many of the techniques described before, microtube technology employs a fugitive process that uses a sacrificial man- drel, which in this case is a fiber. High-quality coating techniques very faithfully replicate the surface of the fiber on the inner wall of the coating after the fiber is removed. By a proper choice of fiber, coating, deposition method, and mandrel removal method, tubes of practically any compo- sition can be fabricated. Obviously, a great deal of material science is involved in making precision tubes of high qual- ity. Some scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrographs of a group of tubes are shown in Fig. 1. Cross-sectional shapes and wall thickness can be very accurately controlled to a fraction of a micron, which is not possible by using any of the approaches cited before. Numerous cross-sectional shapes have already been made, and some of them are shown in Fig. 2. These micrographs should be sufficient to demonstrate that practically any cross-sectional shape imagined can be fabricated. As seen in Fig. 2, the wall thickness of the tubes can be held very uniform around the tube. It is also possible to control the wall thickness accurately along the length of the individ- ual tubes and among the tubes in a batch or a continuous process. It can be seen in Fig. 2 that the walls can be made nonporous. It will be shown later that the microstructure of the walls and extent of porosity that the walls contain can also be controlled. In addition to the possibility of cross- sectional tube shapes, using a fugitive process also allows fabricating tubes that have practically any axial geometry, as is shown later. The maximum length in which these tubes can be made has yet to be determined because it depends on many vari- ables, such as the type of tube material, the composition of the sacrificial tube-forming material, and the degree of porosity in the wall. It is possible that there is no limitation in length for a tube that has a porous wall. For nonporous wall tubing, the maximum length would probably be in the meter range because there is a direct relationship between the tube i.d. and the maximum possible length. However, for most applications conceived to date, the length need only be of the order of a few centimeters. Based on a quick calculation, it is apparent that even “short” tubes have a tremendous aspect ratio. For instance, a 10-µm i.d. tube 25 cm long has an aspect ratio of 2500. Using microtubetechnology, thereis noupper limitation in wall thickness for most materials. To date, free-standing tubes have been made whose wall thickness range from 0.01–800 µm (Fig. 3a). Most of the microtubes tested to date have demonstrated surprising mechanical strength. In fact, preliminary studies of both copper and silver tubes whose wall thickness is in the micron range have shown that microtubes can have up to two times the tensile strength of an annealed wire of the same material of the same cross-sectional area. Besides precise control of the tube wall thickness and composition, the interior surface of these tube walls can have practically any desired texture or degree of roughness. In addition, the walls can range from nonporous to extremely porous, as seen in Fig. 4, and the interior or exterior surfaces of these tubes can be coated by one or more layers of other materials (Fig. 5), In additionto free-standing microtubes, solid monolithic structures that have microchannels can be fabricated by making the tube walls so thick that the spaces between the tubes are filled (Fig.6). Themicrochannels can berandomly oriented, or they can have a predetermined orientation. P1: FCH/FYX P2: FCH/FYX QC: FCH/UKS T1: FCH PB091-M-drv January 12, 2002 1:4 648 MICROTUBES (a) (b) (c) (d) Figure 1. Examples of microtubes: (a) 10-µm silicon carbide tubes; (b) 410-µm nickel tubes; (c) 26-µm silicon nitride tube; and (d) 0.6-µm quartz tube. Any desired orientation or configuration of microtubes can be obtained by a fixturing process. Alternatively, compos- ite materials can be made by using a material different from the tube wall as a “matrix” that fills in the space among the tubes. The microtubes imbedded in these mono- lithic structures form oriented microchannels that, like free-standing tubes, can contain solids, liquids, and gases, and as act as waveguides for all types of electromagnetic energy. Microtube Applications Discrete thinner walled microtubes are useful in areas as diverse as spill cleanup, encapsulation of medicine or explosives, insulation that is usable across a very wide range of temperature, and as lightweight structural reinforcement similar to that found in bone or wood. The cross-sectional shape of these reinforcing tubes can be tail- ored to optimize mechanical or other properties. In addi- tion, thinner walled tubes are useful as bending or ex- tension actuators when fabricated from smart materials. Thicker walled tubes (Fig. 3b: nickel and SS) that are just as easily fabricated are needed in other applications, such as calibrated leaks and applications that involve internal or external pressure on the tube wall. The ability to coat the interior or exterior surface of these tubes with a layer or numerous layers of other ma- terials enlarges the uses of the microtubes and also allows fabricating certain devices. For example, applying oxida- tion or corrosion protection layers on a structural or spe- cialty tube material will greatly enlarge its uses. A catalyst can be coated on the inner and/or outer tube surface to en- hance chemical reactions. The catalytic activity of the tube can also be enhanced by increasing the porosity in the wall, as shown before in Fig. 4. Multiple alternating conductive and insulating layers on a tube can provide a multiple-path microcoaxial conductor or a high-density microcapacitor. As stated before, the interior surface of these tube walls can have practically any desired texture or degree of rough- ness. This control is highly advantageous and allows using microtubes in many diverse applications. For example, op- tical waveguides require very smooth walls, whereas cat- alytic reactors would benefit from rough walls. (Because of the fabrication technique, the roughness of the tube wall interior can be quantified to a fraction of a micron by using scanning probe microscopy techniques on the mandrel.) P1: FCH/FYX P2: FCH/FYX QC: FCH/UKS T1: FCH PB091-M-drv January 12, 2002 1:4 MICROTUBES 649 (a) (b) (c) (d) Figure 2. Tubes larger than 1 µm i.d. can be made in any cross-sectional shape such as (a) 17-µm star, (b) 9 × 34-µm oval, (c) 59-µm smile, and (d) a 45-µm trilobal shape. (a) (b) Figure 3. Tubes can be structurally sound and have (a) very thin walls or (b) thick walls. P1: FCH/FYX P2: FCH/FYX QC: FCH/UKS T1: FCH PB091-M-drv January 12, 2002 1:4 650 MICROTUBES Figure 4. Microtube that has a porous tube wall. Microtubes can be made straight or curved (Fig. 7), or they can be coiled (Fig. 8). Coiled tubes whose coils are as small as 20 µm can be used, for example, as flex- ible connectors or solenoid coils. For the latter applica- tion, the coils could be of metal or of a high temperature superconductor where liquid nitrogen flows through the (a) (b) Figure 5. (a) Sapphire tube that has a silver liner. (b) Nickel tube that has a silver liner. Figure 6. Solid nickel structure that has oriented microchannels. tube. Another application for coils is for force or pres- sure measurement. No longer are we limited to quartz mi- crosprings. Using microtube technology, the diameter and wall thickness of the tube, the diameter of the coil, the tube material, and the coil spacing can be very precisely (a) (b) Figure 7. Examples of curved silver tubes: (a) single tube; (b) multiple tubes. P1: FCH/FYX P2: FCH/FYX QC: FCH/UKS T1: FCH PB091-M-drv January 12, 2002 1:4 MICROTUBES 651 (a) (b) Figure 8. (a) Section of “large” coiled tube. (b) Open end of coiled tube. controlled to give whatever spring constant is needed for the specific application. In addition, these microcoils can be made from a variety of smart materials and used as actuators or sensors. For example, the length of a spring made from Nitinol ® can easily be changed by applying heat. It is also possible to wrap one or more coiled spring tubes around a core tube (Fig. 9). Applications for this kind of device range from a counterflow heat exchanger to a screwdrive for micromachines. (For the screw application, the wrapped coil cross section could be made rectangular.) Like coiled spring tubes, bellows can be used as microin- terconnects, sensors, and actuators and can be made in practically any shape imaginable. Figure 10a shows a bel- lows that has a circular cross section, and the bellows in Fig. 10b has a square cross section and aligned bellows segments. The bellows in Fig. 10c is square and has a twist. A slightly more complex bellows shown in Fig. 10d is a tapered-square camera bellows that has a sunshade to demonstrate the unique capability of this technology. It demonstrates the ability to control cross section and ax- ial shape and to decrease and increase the cross-sectional Figure 9. A coiled tube wrapped around a tube or fiber that can be used as a heat exchanger or as a microscopic screwdrive. dimension in the same device. Bellows fabricated by mi- crotube technology can have a variety of shaped ends for connections to systems for use, for example, as finned heat exchangers, hydrauliccouplings forgas and liquid, or static mixers for multiple fluids. The bellows in Fig. 10e has a thicker transitional region and a dovetail on the end for connection to a device machined on a silicon wafer. The fe- male dovetail to mate with this bellows is a commercially available trench design (68) on a silicon wafer that pro- vides a way to attach the bellows to the wafer, which can be pressurized by using proper sealing. (No other technology available can join a fluidic coupling to a wafer for pressur- ization to relatively high pressures.) If one end of the bellows is sealed, an entirely new group of applications becomes possible. For example, if a bellows end is sealed, the bellows can be extended hydraulically or pneumatically. In this configuration, a bellows could be used as a positive displacement pump, a valve actuator, or for micromanipulation. As a manipulator, a single bellows could be used for linear motion, three bellows could be or- thogonally placed for 3-D motion, or three bellows could be attached at several places externally along their axes (Fig. 11) and differentially pressurized to produce a bend- ing motion. This bending motion would produce a microfin- ger, andseveral of thesefingers would make up a hand. The large forces and displacements possible by using this tech- nique far surpass those currently possible by electrostatic or piezoelectric means and fulfill the need expressed by Wise and Najafi (18) when they stated that “In the area of micro-actuators, we badly need drive mechanisms capable of producing high force and high displacement simultaneously.” For most applications, it is necessary to interface mi- crotubes and the macroworld. This is possible in a num- ber of ways. For example, a tapering process can be used in which the diameter is gradually decreased to micron di- mensions. Alternatively, the tubes and the macroworld can be interfacedby telescopingor numerous types of manifold- ing schemes (Fig. 12). An example of a thin-walled 5-µm i.d. tube telescoped to a 250-µm o.d. tube is shown in Fig. 13. 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Examples of microtubes: (a) 10 - m silicon carbide tubes; (b) 410 - m nickel tubes; (c) 2 6- m silicon. FCH/FYX QC: FCH/UKS T1: FCH PB0 9 1- M- drv January 12 , 2002 1: 4 6 58 MICROTUBES A OUTB 0 1 0 1 01 0 1 1 0 0 1 Non-wetting droplet 1 Non-wetting droplet 2 A B Out (a) AB Out (b) Figure 22. Microfluidic logic. polymers from the liq- uid phase and electrochemically deposited metal in the P1: FCH/FYX P2: FCH/FYX QC: FCH/UKS T1: FCH PB0 9 1- M- drv January 12 , 2002 1: 4 646 MICROTUBES pore structure of the membrane.