1. Microfluidics Propulsion & System Integration in MEMS Devices

2.  An undergraduate led research group comprised of students from multiple disciplines of engineering  Mentored by faculty members including Professors Mustafa Yavuz and Omar Ramahi Research interests in:  Integration of microfluidics, RF, photovoltaics, and digital logic for creating advanced devices  Improving MEMS technologies for industry adoption

3.  Designing a 300 micron diameter device to compete at the 2009 Nanogram Robocup Competition  Robocup is an annual competition held to promote AI, robotics and related fields since 1993  Nanogram is a NIST supported initiative to advance integrated MEMS devices

4.  Cylindrical design utilizing a photovoltaic cell and two 10 micron air compressors  Pump actuation controlled by two phototransistors  Power delivery through photovoltaic cell  Two phototransistors control pump actuation

5.  Flexible conductive membrane placed above fixed electrode forms compression chamber  Attraction between membrane and electrode with potential difference leads to air compression

6.  Shaped nozzles direct air flow to create net force in one direction  Variation between two pumps allow for steering  Computationally derived oscillation of 1mhz creates optimum thrust without resonant effects

7.  Germanium based IR detector on aluminum substrate  100 micron diameter  Detects wavelengths from 850nm to 1550nm  0 to 10V bias  1 uA dark current

8.  Substrate is cleaned and Positive Photoresist is spincoated  PMMA (Microchem)  Achieve thickness of 2 microns  Substrate with photoresist is baked

9.  Mask patterns the electrode layer  Mask is removed and substrate is developed  Electrode layer is sputtered onto the substrate  Chromium (for adhesion) is used and sputtered to ~1 micron thickness  Remaining resists are removed

10.  PMMA and Copolymer is spincoated above the substrate  Used to pattern walls  Achieve thickness of 4 microns  Shape of pump and channels patterned with “v”-shape

11.  Patterned membrane shape and developed  Aluminum deposited onto Pattern  Approximately 2-3 microns thick  Remaining resist is removed

12.  Above membrane, photoresist is spincoated above again  Use of both PMMA and Copolymer  Bake photoresist and then deposit Aluminum  Remove Resist  Formation of top chamber

14.  Utilization of two different wavelengths for microcompressor control  Control each microcompressor individually

15.  Complete solar array design for integration onto robot  Theoretical design will be outsourced to a photovoltaic foundry for fabrication  Development of a thin-film RF antenna has begun to use inductive coupling as a method of power transfer  Biocompatibility materials studies  Surface interaction optimization for robotic device movement