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Capillary And Magnetic Forces For Microscale Self-Assembled Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Christopher J. Morris,
Kate E. Laflin,
Brian Isaacson,
Michael Grapes and
David Gracias
Christopher J. Morris
Affiliation:
christopher.morris17@arl.army.mil, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, Adelphi, Maryland, United States
Kate E. Laflin
Affiliation:
klaflin1@jhu.edu, Johns Hopkins University, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Brian Isaacson
Affiliation:
brian.isaacson@arl.army.mli, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, Adelphi, Maryland, United States
Michael Grapes
Affiliation:
michael.grapes@arl.army.mil, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, Adelphi, Maryland, United States
David Gracias
Affiliation:
dgracias@scholarone.com, Johns Hopkins University, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
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Abstract

Self-assembly is a promising technique to overcome fundamental limitations with integrating, packaging, and generally handling individual electronic-related components with characteristic lengths significantly smaller than 1 mm. Here we briefly summarize the use of capillary and magnetic forces to realize two example microscale systems. In the first example, we use capillary forces from a low melting point solder alloy to integrate 500 μm square, 100 μm thick silicon chips with thermally and chemically sensitive metal-polymer hinge actuators, for potential medical applications. The second example demonstrates a path towards self-assembling 3-D silicon circuits formed out of 280 μm sized building blocks, utilizing both capillary forces from a low melting point solder alloy and magnetic forces from integrated, permanent magnets. In the latter example, the utilization of magnetic forces combined with capillary forces improved the assembly yield to 7.8% over 0.1% achieved previously with capillary forces alone.

Keywords

self-assemblymagneticalloy

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References

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