MEMS
MEMS (also refered to by a popular term ‘miromachines’) are devices that integrate mechanical and electrical components on a chip. These components have typical feature sizes of the order of microns. Such ‘fine’ manufacturing has been made possible by adapting the technilogy that was originally developed to make integrated circuits (IC). MEMS fabrication facilities are now available all over the country and the world.
Our focus is on SMA-based MEMS and bio-MEMS.
In the first case, we propose to integrate SMAs on MEMS and do for MEMS what is being done for larger devices, i.e. create significant motion against large forces with the added ingredient of fast actuation. Admittedly, the idea of integrating SMAs with MEMS is not new. Folks have tried to make micropumps for intraveneous drug delivery, micro tweezers for cell manipulation and micro-bubbles to control the dynamics of air flow on a surface. We propose to explore the possibility of using SMAs on the micron scale for relatively high speed actuation, in spite of the fact that SMA actuation relies on thermal fields.
In the second case, we are working on modeling of time-dependent fluid flow in microchannels and this has certain relevance for micro pump applications.