Monitoring bio-electric events is a common procedure, which provides medical data required in clinical and research applications. Electrophysiological measurements are applied in diagnosis as well as evaluation of the performance of different body organs and systems, e. g. the heart, muscles and the nervous system. Furthermore, it is staple feature in operation rooms and extensive care units. The performance of the recording system is affected by the tools and instrumentation used and the bio-electrode is a key-player in electrophysiology, hence, the improvements in the electrode recording technique will be directly reflected in the system?s performance in terms of the signal quality, recording duration as well as patient comfort. In this thesis, a design methodology for micro-spike array dry bio-electrodes is introduced. <br /><br /> The purpose of this methodology is to meet the design specifications for portable long-term EEG recording and optimize the electrical performance of the electrodes by maximizing the electrode-skin contact surface area, while fulfilling design constraints including mechanical, physiological and economical limitations. This was followed by proposing a low cost fabrication technique to implement the electrodes. The proposed electrode design has a potential impact in enhancing the performance of the current recording systems, and also suits portable monitoring and long term recording devices. The design process was aided by using a software design and optimization tool, which was specifically created for this application. <br /><br /> The application conditions added challenges to the electrode design in order to meet the required performance requirements. On the other hand, the required design specifications are not fulfilled in the current electrode technologies which are designed and customized only for short term clinical recordings. <br /><br /> The electrode theory of application was verified using an experimental setup for an electrochemical cell, but the overall performance including measuring the electrode impedance is awaiting a clinical trial.

<p>Although trapped ion technology is well-suited for quantum information science, scalability of the system remains one of the main challenges. One of the challenges associated with scaling the ion trap quantum computer is the ability to individually manipulate the increasing number of qubits. Using micro-mirrors fabricated with micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology, laser beams are focused on individual ions in a linear chain and steer the focal point in two dimensions. Multiple single qubit gates are demonstrated on trapped 171Yb+ qubits and the gate performance is characterized using quantum state tomography. The system features negligible crosstalk to neighboring ions (< 3e-4), and switching speeds comparable to typical single qubit gate times (< 2 us). In a separate experiment, photons scattered from the 171Yb+ ion are coupled into an optical fiber with 63% efficiency using a high numerical aperture lens (0.6 NA). The coupled photons are directed to superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPD), which provide a higher detector efficiency (69%) compared to traditional photomultiplier tubes (35%). The total system photon collection efficiency is increased from 2.2% to 3.4%, which allows for fast state detection of the qubit. For a detection beam intensity of 11 mW/cm2, the average detection time is 23.7 us with 99.885(7)% detection fidelity. The technologies demonstrated in this thesis can be integrated to form a single quantum register with all of the necessary resources to perform local gates as well as high fidelity readout and provide a photon link to other systems.</p> / Dissertation

The objective of this thesis is to present a theoretical and experimental investigation of the dynamics of micro and nano-electromechanical systems electrothermally tuned and electrostatically actuated, and explore their potential for practical applications. The first part of the dissertation presents the tuning of the frequency of clamped-clamped micro and nano-resonators, straight and curved. These resonators are electrothermally or electrostatically tuned. The effect of geometric parameters on the frequency variation is investigated experimentally and theoretically using a reduced order model based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. High tunability is demonstrated for micro and nano beams, straight and initially curved. The second part discusses the dynamical behavior of a curved (arch) beam electrothermally tuned and electrostatically actuated. We show that the first resonance frequency increases up to twice its fundamental value and the third resonance frequency decreases until getting very close to the first resonance frequency triggering the veering phenomenon. We study experimentally and analytic ally, using the Galerkin procedure, the dynamic behavior of the arch beam. Next, upon changing the electrothermal voltage, the second symmetric natural frequency of the arch is adjusted to near twice, three times, and four times the fundamental natural frequency. This gives rise to a potential two-to-one, three-to-one, and four-to-one autoparametric resonances between the two modes. These resonances are demonstrated experimentally and theoretically. The third part of the dissertation is concerned with the incorporation of the electrothermally tuned and electrostatically actuated microresonators into potential applications: filtering and sensing. First, we experimentally prove an exploitation of the nonlinear softening, hardening, and veering phenomena of an arch beam, to demonstrate a flat, wide, and tunable bandwidth and center frequency by controlling the electrothermal actuation voltage. Second, a pressure sensor based on the convective cooling of the air surrounding an electrothermally heated resonant bridge is demonstrated experimentally. The concept is demonstrated using both straight and arch microbeam resonators driven and sensed electrostatically. The change in the surrounding pressure is shown to be accurately tracked by monitoring the change in the resonance frequency of the structure.

O desempenho comportamental de dispositivos MEMS (Sistemas Micro Eletro Mecânicos) baseados em deformação elástica pode ser modificado conforme a temperatura ambiente onde o mesmo está inserido. A compreensão do desempenho comportamental destas estruturas permite avaliar o grau de influência da variação térmica, além de verificar a funcionalidade das mesmas. As estruturas alvo são dois micros rotores utilizados nos atuadores comb-drive, tais como ponte dupla e dobradiça com tipologia simples e deslocamento unidirecional. Neste contexto, o objetivo deste trabalho foi obter um modelo comportamental estimado de micro rotores MEMS fundamentado na teoria de Identificação de Sistemas através de técnicas de modelagem matemática caixa cinza em diferentes temperaturas. A representação matemática utilizada corresponde aos modelos matemáticos auto regressivos com entradas e saídas exógenas. Os parâmetros dos modelos estimados são obtidos utilizando o método dos Mínimos Quadrados (MQ), sendo os dados processados em lote. Os testes experimentais das estruturas utilizadas foram realizados em uma plataforma experimental desenvolvida na ferramenta computacional que utiliza o método de elementos finitos, usando como teste um sinal degrau e um sinal degrau contaminado com ruído. Os índices de erro relativo, raiz do erro quadrático médio e a validação cruzada foram utilizados para validar os modelos estimados. O modelo estimado resultante apresentou um desempenho satisfatório quando foi comparado com os dados experimentais e com um modelo fenomenológico do processo. Desta forma, o modelo estimado obtido a partir dos dados no processo de fabricação, quando comparado com o modelo fenomenológico, auxilia o projetista de MEMS na melhora da qualidade do desempenho dessas estruturas. / 96 f.

Wireless networks face ever-changing demands on their spectrum and infrastructure resources such as, increased communication bands, capacity-intensive data applications, and the steady growth of worldwide wireless subscribers. This rapid increase in the use of wireless communication and the dependence on a reliable connectivity leads manufacturers to seek systems which are ever smaller, low power, provide long range, and high bandwidth, whilst giving higher reliable technologies. In modern communication systems MEMS is now finding its way, replacing older more high power and non-linear systems. One of the important components of RF MEMS technology is the implementation of MEMS phase shifters for phased array applications that require better performance than arrays of conventional phase shifters. An important example is where RF MEMS devices can be applied to vary the characteristics of an antenna, such as beam steering or tuning in a multiband antenna. The core of this thesis is the development and fabrication of a novel Parylene based MEMS phase shifter. This is the first novel application of Parylene as the strength member of the MEMS bridge. The implementation provided MEMS devices with lower actuation voltage of < 25 V. The fabricated phases shifters provide higher RF performance such as < 1 dB insertion loss, linearity of > 65 dBm, and return loss of < -15 dB. The reliability of the fabricated devices were tested beyond 2 billion switching cycles. This is higher than competing MEMS capacitive devices with a maximum lifetime of 500 million cycles. The fabricated device provides a maximum phase shift of 16.82° at 2.5 GHz, whilst the nominal value of phase shift was 5.4° at 2.5 GHz within the stable region of operation. The fabricated device provides comparable results with respect to reference DMTL designs. The research carried out in this thesis has lead to a number of international publications and four granted patents. The generic nature of this technology can open new opportunities in the conception and application of new MEMS devices in communication and sensing applications. The ability to deliver miniature, low power and high efficiency MEMS capacitive devices, will revolutionise the next generation of tuneable RF components suitable for mobile and handheld devices of the future.

MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) acoustic sensors are a promising platform for Point-of-Care biosensing. In particular, piezoelectrically driven acoustic sensors can provide fast results with high sensitivity, can be miniaturized and mass produced, and have the potential to be fully integrated with sample handling and electronics in handheld devices. Furthermore, they can be designed as multiplexed arrays to detect multiple biomarkers of interest in parallel. In order to develop a microfabricated biosensing platform, a specific and high affinity biodetection platform must be optimized, and the microfabricated sensors must be designed to have high sensitivity and maintain good performance in a liquid environment. A biomolecular sensing system that uses high affinity peptide aptamers and a passivation layer has been optimized for the detection of proteins of interest using the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D). The resulting system is highly specific to target proteins, differentiating between target IgG molecules and other closely related IgG subclasses, even in complex environments such as serum. Piezoelectrically actuated MEMS resonators are designed to operate in flexural microplate modes, with several modes shown to be ideally suited for fluid based biosensing due to improved performance in the liquid environment. The increase in quality factor of these MEMS microplate devices in liquid, as compared to air, is further investigated through the analytical and finite element modeling of MEMS fluid damping mechanisms, with a focus on acoustic radiation losses for circular microplate devices. It is found that the impedance mismatch at the air-water interface of a droplet is a key contributor to reduced acoustic radiation losses and thus improved device performance in water. Microplate acoustic sensors operating in flexural plate wave and microplate flexural modes are then integrated with a fluidic cell to facilitate protein sensing from fluid samples. Flexural plate wave devices are used to measure protein mass adsorbed to the sensor surface and initial results toward microplate flexural mode protein sensing are presented. Finally, challenges and areas of future research are discussed to outline the path towards finalization of a sensing platform taking advantage of the combination of the sensitive MEMS acoustic sensor capable of operating in a liquid environment and the specific and high affinity biomolecular detection system. Together, these form the potential basis of a novel Point-of-Care platform for simple and rapid monitoring of protein levels in complex samples.

The development of magnetic technologies employing microfabricated magnetic structures for the production of integrated electronic components is a driving topic in the electronic industry. Despite the large amount of work reported in the literature towards the production of magnetic devices that can be integrated into conventional silicon technology, the published research has only achieved moderate success. The research presented in this thesis was conducted with the aim to progress towards the production of a magnetic MEMS relay based on electro-deposited NiFe that combines magnetic and electrostatic actuation and that can be integrated in a standard IC processing chain. This work includes a comprehensive design study for the proposed MEMS device and presents the development of the manufacturing processes required for its fabrication. As the theoretical performance of the device is found to be crucially reliant on the mechanical and magnetic properties of the microformed structures, a series of novel test methodologies has been devised and implemented with the aim of acquiring knowledge on the behaviour of the NiFe films. Novel mechanical test routines employing microfabricated test structures are presented and applied to build a systematic and robust system for the characterisation of the electrodeposited films. The quantitative mapping of residual stress at the wafer level using microfabricated test structures has been demonstrated for the first time and applied to optimise processes and tools. A complete fabrication process flow for manufacturing the designed magnetic MEMS switch has been proposed and the fabrication of the actuated section of the switch has been demonstrated, comprising all the functional electric and magnetic components. The fabricated magnetic devices have been tested to monitor their response to an external magnetic force and prove their viability for use in MEMS actuators. Additional work was finally conducted towards the development of a reliable and robust process aimed at increasing the device yield and thus facilitating the eventual commercialisation of magnetic MEMS switches.

On-chip vibrating MEMS resonators with high frequency-Q product on par with that of the off-chip quartz crystals have attracted lots of attention from both academia and industry for applications on sensing, signal processing, and wireless communication. Up to now, several approaches for monolithic integration of MEMS and transistors have been demonstrated. Vibrating micromechanical disk resonators which utilize electroplated nickel as the structural material along with either a solid-gap high-k dielectric capacitive transducer or a piezoelectric transducer have great potential to offer unprecedented performance and capability of seamless integration with integrated circuits. Despite the frequency drift problems encountered in early attempts to use nickel as a structural material in MEMS gyroscopes, this low temperature nickel electroplating technology is amenable to post-transistor planar integration. The nickel microstructure is formed through the photoresist molding and electroplating process which enables the microstructure to have extremely high aspect ratio while retaining the overall process temperature under 60ºC. This temperature is low enough to allow the RF MEMS devices to be fabricated directly on top of foundry IC chips, thus enabling post-transistor monolithic integration with minimum parasitics. In addition, the electroplating setup for nickel deposition can be much cheaper as compared to the other deposition facilities (e.g., PVD, CVD, etc). However, as the dimensions of the resonators are shrunk to µm range, several issues have come forth such as higher motional resistance and lower power handling ability. In order to reduce the motional resistance, high permittivity material is employed to form a solid capacitive gap instead of an air gap. As compared to the air gap, ease of the process, better stability and elimination of the particles are the additional benefits of using the solid gap. Therefore, an ultra-thin high-k dielectric layer with atomically controlled thickness down to sub-nm range can be deposited under 100ºC on the vertical sidewall of the device structure by using ALD processing technology. This enhances the efficiency of the capacitive transducer enormously, thus reducing the characteristic motional resistance of the device. This research project explored the idea of applying low temperature process of electroplated nickel and high-k solid-gap as well as partially-filled air-gap capacitive transducers. To further reduce the motional impedance, electromechanically-coupled resonator arrays have been implemented. Furthermore, the linearity of solid-gap versus partially-filled air-gap resonators has been studied through a modeling approach for RF applications. In the meanwhile, this work also investigated electroplated nickel as a structural material for piezoelectrically-transduced resonators to demonstrate piezoelectric-on-nickel resonators with low temperature process. The thin film piezoelectric resonators can achieve high resonance frequency when increasing the piezoelectric film thickness and scaling down the device size. However, the sputtered piezoelectric films have very low deposition rate which limits the thickness to a couple of microns or less. Moreover, the yield of piezoelectric resonators is restricted after the releasing process since the stress of the thin films usually causes the structural layer to buckle or fracture. Thus, the development of piezoelectric-on-substrate resonators is an alternative solution to resolve the aforementioned issues. The previous work has been done by using single crystal silicon or nano-crystalline diamond (NCD) as resonator structural materials due to their high acoustic velocity and low loss. However, the deposition temperature for thin film silicon and diamond is too high to be allowable thermal budget of ICs. Therefore, electroplated nickel is also a reasonable substitute for silicon and diamond substrates while realizing high frequency and moderate Q. Furthermore, it is observed that a localized annealing process through Joule heating can be adopted to significantly improve the effective mechanical quality factor for the ZnO-on-nickel resonators. This work successfully demonstrated the ZnO-on-nickel piezoelectrically-actuated MEMS resonators and resonator arrays with frequencies ranging from a few megahertz to 1.5 GHz by using IC compatible low temperature process.

[Truncated abstract] This study investigates the mechanical and physical properties of low-temperature (100-300 ?C) plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposited (PECVD) silicon nitride (SiNxHy) thin films for the fabrication of short-wave infrared tunable Fabry-Perot filters with high fill factor, high cavity finesse and low actuation voltages. It has been the intensions of this work to fabricate a tunable filter that can be monolithically integrated with temperature-sensitive substrates, namely mercury cadmium telluride (Hg(1-x)CdxTe) photoconductors and photodiodes. A range of methods have been utilised to determine the Young's modulus (E), residual stress ([sigma]0), density ([rho]) and Poisson's ratio ([nu]) of PECVD SiNxHy thin films. In order to understand how E, [sigma]0, [rho] and [nu] are affected by process conditions, a range of SiNxHy thin films deposited with varying chuck temperatures, RF powers and chamber pressures were measured. The resonance method was used to determine E and [nu] of SiNxHy thin films deposited under varying process conditions. The resonance method involves exciting the bending and torsional vibration modes of a microcantilever beam fabricated from a film. The E and G values can be extracted directly from the bending and torsional vibration modes and the [nu] value can be determined from the calculated E and G values. The density of the films was determined using the quartz crystal microbalance method. In order to determine the validity of the resonance method, finite element modelling was used to determine its dependence on microcantilever beam dimensions. ... Increasing the temperature also increases the tensile residual stress of the films. This study also reveals that increasing the RF power and decreasing the chamber pressure increases E and [rho], as well as increasing the compressive residual stress of the films. The theoretical design and analysis, as well as the fabrication of a new surface micromachined short-wave infrared tunable Fabry-Perot filter for adaptive infrared photon detectors is also presented in this study. The proposed structure, termed the suspension filter, uses broad spectral range, high reflectivity distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) mirrors, resulting in very high finesse filters. The device utilises multiple sacrificial layers to define the resonant cavity spacer and the separation of the top mirror from the supporting flexures. The flexures were fabricated from low-temperature (PECVD) SiNxHy thin films. Separation of the top mirror from the supporting flexures allows for improved fill-factors (up to 79%), as well as increased tuning range. Theoretical optical and electromechanical results shows large wavelength tuning ranges (1.5-2.5 [mu]m) at low actuation voltages (<30 V) are possible using the proposed design, whilst still maintaining a high cavity finesse. Optical characterisation of fixed filter micro-cavities on Si substrates show transmissions of ~60% with small line widths (35 nm) are achievable using the proposed mirror system. Mirror displacement versus applied bias voltage curves obtained from a released filter fabricated on Si show a stable mirror displacement of 620 nm was achieved, whilst theoretical results suggested the required 750 nm mirror displacement is possible using the proposed design.

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