Micro and Nanofabrication (MEMS)

Microfabrication and nanofabrication are the basis of manufacturing for nearly all modern miniaturized systems that are ubiquitously used in our daily life. Examples include; computer chips and integrated sensors for monitoring our environment, cars, mobile phones, medical devices and more.

Micro- and nanofabrication can be taught to students and professionals by textbooks and ex-cathedra lectures, but the real learning comes from seeing the manufacturing steps as they happen.

In this engineering course, we will go a step beyond classroom teaching to not only explain the basics of each fabrication step but also show you how it’s done through video sequences and zooming into the equipment.

Week 1: MEMS and cleanroom introduction
This module introduces the basics of electromechanical systems (MEMS) and cleanroom fabrication. Week 2: Chemical vapor deposition (CVD)
This module on chemical vapor deposition or CVD describes in detail basic principles of CVD and will show you the cleanroom infrastructure that is used to run a CVD process. Week 3: Physical vapor deposition (PVD)
This module on physical vapor deposition describes in details the two main PVD methods; thermal evaporation and sputtering. Week 4: Lithography
This module on lithography describes in details the two main resist patterning methods: optical and electron beam lithography. Week 5: Dry etching
This module on dry etching describes etching in a gas environment. We will introduce etching directionality and anisotropy and give a few simple rules for choosing dry etching processes for specific materials in a plasma reactor and provide theoretical concepts that characterize a plasma in a dry etching equipment. Week 6: Wet etching
This module on wet etching describes etching in a liquid environment. We will introduce anisotropic wet etching of silicon substrates, where certain lattice planes are etched and others not, isotropic etching of silicon, and finally thin membrane microfabrication techniques using wet etching. Week 7: Inspection and metrology
This module describes methods of inspection and metrology based on four technique categories: optical, mechanical, charged beam and electrical.