An innovative 3D printing method could be used to make customized electronic “machines” the size of insects that could be used in cutting-edge robotics, medical devices, and other areas. This could be done at a price that most people could afford.
This innovation may change the way customized chip-based microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are produced. These tiny machines, which offer precise positioning, are mass-produced in large quantities for hundreds of electronic products, such as cars and smartphones. On the other hand, MEMS technologies require expensive customization to make more specialized sensors in smaller quantities, like accelerometers for airplanes and vibration sensors for industrial machinery.
According to Frank Niklaus, the research leader at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, the new 3D printing method, which was described in Nature Microsystems & Nanoengineering, offers a way to get around the constraints of traditional MEMS manufacturing.
The costs of developing manufacturing processes and improving device designs do not decrease with lower production volumes, the author claims. So, engineers have to choose between using off-the-shelf MEMS devices that aren’t very good or paying high start-up costs that aren’t worth it.
Low-volume products like wind turbines and motion and vibration control units for robots and industrial tools could also use this method.
The scientists based their work on a procedure known as two-photon polymerization, which can create high-resolution objects as small as a few hundred nanometers in size but is not functional for sensing. The method makes use of a shadow-masking technique, which functions somewhat like a stencil, to create the transducing elements. They create features with a T-shaped cross-section on the 3D-printed structure that function like umbrellas. The sides of the T-shaped features are not coated with metal as a result of the subsequent deposit of metal from above. As a result, the T’s top metal is electrically isolated from the rest of the building.
He claims that using this technique, it only takes a few hours to produce a dozen or so specially designed MEMS accelerometers using reasonably priced commercial manufacturing equipment. He says that the method can be used to make small and medium-sized batches of tens of thousands to a few thousand MEMS sensors and MEMS device prototypes at a low cost each year.
Because the start-up costs for manufacturing a MEMS product using conventional semiconductor technology are on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and because the lead times are several months or longer, he claims that this has not previously been feasible. “The new capabilities provided by 3D-printed MEMS may lead to a paradigm shift in the production of MEMS and sensors.”
Scalability is a prerequisite for MEMS production, not just a benefit. This technique would make it possible to fabricate numerous new and unique devices.
