Scott M Berry et al 2006 J. Micromech. Microeng. 16 1825 doi:10.1088/0960-1317/16/9/010
Scott M Berry1,2, Steven A Harfenist2,4, Robert W Cohn2 and Robert S Keynton1,2,3
Show affiliationsNo current microfabrication technique exists for producing room- temperature, high-precision, point-to-point polymer micro- and sub- microscale fibers in three dimensions. The purpose of this work is to characterize a novel method for fabricating interconnected three- dimensional (3-D) structures of micron and sub-micron feature size. Poly- (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) micro- and sub-microscale fiber suspended bridges are fabricated at room temperature by drawing from pools of solvated polymer using a nano-tipped stylus that is precisely positioned by an ultra-high-precision micromilling machine. The fibers were drawn over a 1.8 mm silicon trench, and as the solvent in the solution bridge rapidly evaporates, a suspended, 3-D PMMA fiber remained between the two pools. The resulting fiber diameters were measured for solutions of PMMA in chlorobenzene with concentrations ranging from 15.5 to 23.0 wt% 495k g mol−1 PMMA and 13.0 to 21.0 wt% 950k g mol−1 PMMA. Fibers were found to increase in diameter from 450 nm to 50 µm, roughly corresponding to the increase in concentration of PMMA. To minimize fiber diameter variance, different stylus materials were investigated, with a Parylene®-coated stylus producing fibers with the lowest variance in diameter. Overall, the fiber diameter was found to increase significantly as the solution concentration and polymer molecular weight increased.
07.10.Cm Micromechanical devices and systems
68.03.Cd Surface tension and related phenomena
85.85.+j Micro- and nano-electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) and devices
Soft matter, liquids and polymers
Instrumentation and measurement
Surfaces, interfaces and thin films
Issue 9 (September 2006)
Received 17 March 2006, in final form 30 June 2006
Published 28 July 2006
Scott M Berry et al 2006 J. Micromech. Microeng. 16 1825
N H March 1955 Proc. Phys. Soc. A 68 726
L Büermann and D T Burns 2009 Metrologia 46 S24
James C Robinson 2005 Nonlinearity 18 2135
Charles Gale et al 2004 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 30 S1013
Jack W Judy 2001 Smart Mater. Struct. 10 1115
K Yoshino et al 1979 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 12 1535
P. Español 1997 Europhys. Lett. 40 631
K Ernst et al 2003 Semicond. Sci. Technol. 18 475
Robert Bartnik 1997 Class. Quantum Grav. 14 2185