In-liquid MEMS assembly by optical trapping

Abstract

This paper presents a novel in-liquid method to manipulate and micro-assemble MEMS in 3D by means of holographic optical trapping and hydrophobic interaction. Up to eight traps can be simultaneously generated with a trapping stiffness of 5 pN/µm each. SU8 cylinders (10µm diameter, 10µm-40µm height) were used as test MEMS, which could be translated with a speed of 6µm/s and rotated at 30 rpm. All forces were calibrated by video tracking the Brownian motion of the trapped MEMS and applying Boltzmann statistics. Selected surfaces of the MEMS parts were rendered hydrophobic and used as assembly sites. Using this approach it was possible to permanently assemble SU8 cylinders.

Concept for assembling individual nanostructure-based components into complex devices

“…[15][16][17][18] However, the integration of heterogeneous (dissimilar) nanoscale components, which is required for self-contained probes, remains a challenge. So far such integration has been demonstrated only for micrometer-scale components, 12,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25] and it has been shown that heterogeneous integration can be done in a very efficient way by parallel and unsupervised self-assembly. [26][27][28][29] Micro-and nanoscale components are typically fabricated on rather thick (down to 25 lm, typically 200-300 lm thick) and large (down to 25 lm, typically 5-15 mm lateral dimensions) dies due to practical limitations regarding die a) Present address: International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, Av.…”