A new method of fabricating high aspect ratio nanostructures in silicon without the use of sub-micron lithographic technique is reported. The proposed method comprises two important steps including the use of CMOS spacer technique to form silicon nitride nanostructure masking followed by deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) of the silicon substrate to form the final silicon nanostructures. Silicon ...

The fabrication of high optical quality inverse opals is challenging, requiring large size, three-dimensional ordered layers of high dielectric constant ratio. In this article, alumina/TiO2-air inverse opals with a 98.2% reflectivity peak at 798 nm having an area of 2 cm2 and a thickness of 17 µm are achieved using a sacrificial self-assembled structure of large thickness, which was produced wi...

The effect of a sacrificial layer residue on a cantilever beam in the nano-electro-mechanical nonvolatile memory is investigated for the optimization of reliability characteristics. Different from previous research, pull in voltage model of nano-electro-mechanical nonvolatile memory used triangular residue layer which is considered by real wet etching process. Modified pull in voltage model was...

Due to its remarkable mechanical and biological properties, there is considerable interest in understanding, and replicating, spider silk's stress-processing mechanisms and structure-function relationships. Here, we investigate the role of water in the nanoscale mechanics of the different regions in the spider silk fibre, and their relative contributions to stress processing. We propose that th...

In this work, 3D structuration of LTCC (Low-Temperature Co-fired Ceramic) for microfluidics was studied, using two novel sacrificial carbon paste compositions. These pastes are based on graphite with a water-soluble vehicle consisting of polyvinylpyrrolidone binder (PVP) dissolved in propylene glycol (PG), which is not aggressive to green LTCC material. Both examined pastes differ slightly in b...

A novel formulation for thick-film graphite sacrificial pastes is studied in this paper. It is composed of coarse graphite powder (grain size: 25 μm), dispersed in a vehicle consisting of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) dissolved in a propylene glycol (PG) – glycerol (G) – water mix, which is not aggressive to thin LTCC sheets. The presented sacrificial paste has been successfully applied for fabricati...

This study presents a stable and flexible method for fabricating an integrated microfluidic system with lipid bilayers formed in a free-standing SU-8 membrane. For the fabrication of the SU-8 membranes, a combination of imprint lithography and a sacrificial layer technique was employed in order to obtain a clean, fully released, and mechanically stable membrane with perforated pores. The membra...

In this contribution, a low-pressure/low-temperature casting technique for the preparation of novel free-standing macrocellular polymer-derived ceramic support structures is presented. Preceramic polymers (polycarbosilane and poly(vinyl)silazane) are combined with sacrificial porogens (ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene microbeads) to yield porous ceramic materials in the Si-C or Si-C-N s...

The preparation of a high-strength and highly transparent nacre-like nanocomposite via layer-by-layer assembly technique from poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and Na+-montmorillonite clay nanosheets is reported in this article. We show that a high density of weak bonding interactions between the polymer and the clay particles: hydrogen, dipole-induced dipole, and van der Waals undergoing break-reform ...