Carbon-MEMS (CMEMS) and Carbon-NEMS (CNEMS): Multi-Length Scale Manufacturing in Carbon

Carbon micro- and nanofabrication techniques (C-MEMS and C-NEMS) are based on the pyrolysis of patterned polymers at different temperatures and in different ambient atmospheres [1,2]. The resulting carbon material is typically found to be glassy carbon-like in composition and in electrical and electrochemical behavior [3,4].  Carbon, because it is brittle and hard, is a difficult material to machine, polymers on the other hand can be machined easily in a wide variety of machine tools and as a consequence shapes and sizes that are difficult to achieve directly in carbon can easily be made by patterning a polymer first and then converting it to carbon.

In this contribution we emphasize embodiments of C-MEMS and C-NEMS that allows us to fabricate the very smallest carbon features (nanometer and micrometer range): a photoresist is either patterned by lithography and is subsequently pyrolyzed at high-temperature in an oxygen-free environment or photoresist nanofibers are deposited by electrospinning and then pyrolized [5]. The C-MEMS and C-NEMS applications we are highlighting in this paper are ultrasensitive carbon interdigitated electrode arrays (IDEAs) for nanoelectrochemistry [6] and suspended carbon nano-wires for sensor application in the liquid and gas phase [7].

REFERENCES

[1] C. Wang, G Jia, L.H. Taherabadi. M.J. Madou, J. Microelectromech S 14 (2005) 348-358.

[2] C. Wang, M. Madou, Biosens. Bioelectron. 20 (2005) 2181-2187.

[3] N.E. Hebert, B. Snyder, R.L. McCreery, W.G. Kuhr, S.A. Brazill, Anal. Chem. 75 (2003) 4265-4271.

[4] S. Ranganathan, R.L. McCreery, S.M. Majji, M.  Madou, J. Electrochem. Soc. 147 (2000) 277-282.

[5] C.S.Sharma, A.Sharma and M.Madou, Langmuir  26(4), 2218–2222 (2010)

[6] J. I. Heo, D. S. Shim, G. Turon Teixidor, S. Oh, H. Shin, M. J. Madoub, Carbon Interdigitated Array Nanoelectrodes for Electrochemical Applications, Submitted to the Journal of Electrochemical Society

[7] C.S.Sharma, A.Sharma and M.Madou, submitted to Carbon