Integrative MEMS Materials and Processes for Microsystems

Professor Reza Ghodssi,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Institute for Systems Research,
University of Maryland

ABSTRACT:
Materials technology and process integration are the key enabling tools for novel advances in microsystem design for device applications. In this talk, I present an overview of the various building block materials and process technologies developed for systems integration in our group, MEMS Sensors and Actuators Lab (MSAL), at the University of Maryland. First, the use of InP as an attractive monolithic integrative material for all-optical switching applications is described through MEMS-based evancent coupler and tunable filter devices. Next, the challenges involved in developing a precision and batch fabricated 3-D micromachining technology in silicon by way of gray-scale lithography and deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) are presented. This technology is enabling the design and fabrication of a high speed rotating micro-motor supported on micro-ball bearings and driven by a BCB-based variable capacitor. Finally, selective deposition of the biopolymer chitosan as an interface between organic and inorganic materials is demonstrated in a microfluiduic environment combined with the integrated polymeric optical waveguides as a path toward future cell-based sensing devices.

BIO:
Reza Ghodssi was born in Tehran, Iran in 1966. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in 1990, 1992 and 1996 respectively. His Ph.D. thesis was focused on development of a high aspect ratio microfabrication process for an electrostatically driven MEMS device using x-ray lithography and LIGA technology. Dr. Ghodssi was a Postdoctoral Associate and a Research Scientist in the Microsystems Technology Laboratories and the Gas Turbine Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1997 until 1999. During his tenure at MIT, he developed the building block MEMS fabrication technologies for a microturbine generator device and also served as an Assistant Director on that project. In January 2000, he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland (UMD) at College Park as an Assistant Professor. His research interests are in design and development of microfabrication technologies and their applications to microsensors, microactuators and integrative microsystems. He has received the 2001 UMD George Corcoran Award, 2002 National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the 2003 UMD Outstanding Systems Engineering Faculty Award. Dr. Ghodssi has served as a program co-chairman for the 2001 International Semiconductor Device Research Symposium (ISDRS), and since 2002, as a chairman of the MEMS and NEMS Technical Group at the American Vacuum Society (AVS). Dr. Ghodssi is a co-founder of the MEMS Alliance Group in the greater Washington DC area and a member of the IEEE, AVS and MRS societies.