Advances in Micro Electro Mechanical Systems: From MEMS to NEMS Devices

Dear Colleagues,

It is difficult to emphasize the role of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) in the contemporary technological era. It can be stated that the miniaturization of electromechanical systems is impacting the contemporary society as deeply as did the mass production of electronic systems in the last few decades. In fact, the impressive evolution of embedded system technologies has been fostered by the availability of miniaturized devices that can behave like sensors or actuators. In a sense, these devices are the link between a physical process and the electric circuit processing the analog signal (sensors) or governing the movement of a mechanical component (actuator). In this respect, the interest in MEMS devices has substantially grown since the technological birth of MEMS, which dates back to 1964 with the production of the first batch device. However, only in recent times have the analysis and design of MEMS been approached in a methodologically mature way, based on the precise formulation of forward and inverse problems, which in turn might give rise to nontrivial mathematical problems to solve at least in an approximate way. In this respect, advanced techniques for field analysis and synthesis have substantially helped the design procedure of MEMS devices, providing the foundation for their automated optimal design.

In the area of MEMS, two main streamlines of research can be observed. The first streamline is theoretically oriented and devoted to the analysis and synthesis of multiphysics models of systems such as coupled thermal–elastic systems, electrostatic–elastic systems, magnetically actuated systems, and microfluidic systems. In contrast, the second is more focused on various application areas, such as the design and manufacturing of MEMS for biomedical systems with an emphasis on miniaturized bio-sensors and microdevices for tissue engineering. Specifically, in the area of actuators, there are many excitation techniques; the ones which are commonly used can be classified into three categories, according to the relevant physical principle:

The electrostatic excitation, which is based on an electric field which causes the controlled displacement of a movable component or the deformation of an elastic membrane;

The thermal excitation, which exploits the difference between the thermal expansion coefficients featuring two elastic materials when subject to a temperature gradient;

The magnetic excitation, which is based on the Lorentz force acting on a loop of current placed in an external magnetic field.

In particular, magnetic actuation is an excitation technique that exhibits many advantages. In fact, it allows good linearity of movement versus the excitation signal for a broad interval of values of current. Furthermore, low voltages are needed for its power supply, and hence it has a low power consumption. Finally, it is simple to control by means of a sequence of pulses of current.

Following the ongoing technological evolution, the MEMS technology transitions at the nanoscale into nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS). The challenge of the contemporary MEMS/NEMS technology is twofold: it exploits innovative microfabrication techniques and also requires new models to describe the system or device operation. More often than not, the analysis based on classical physics cannot be used to describe and interpret the behavior of MEMS/NEMS devices. At these scales of dimensions, in fact, the large surface area to volume ratio of the devices and surface effects like charge distribution dominate volume effects like inertia or thermal mass. Due to very small device dimensions and tiny distances between the device components, quantum phenomena must be taken into account in order to describe the measured phenomena. This, in turn, requires sophisticated models for justifying the observed MEMS/NEMS behavior.

Contributions of authors in all the aforementioned areas are very welcome.

Prof. Dr. Slawomir Wiak
Prof. Dr. Paolo Di Barba
Prof. Dr. Lukasz Szymanski
Guest Editors

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