Zyvex Corp.

Founded in 1997, Zyvex is the first molecular nanotechnology company. The company’s vision is to become the worldwide supplier of tools, products and services that enable adaptable, affordable and molecularly precise manufacturing. Zyvex technology is being used in biomaterials and subcellular characterization, nanomaterial composites for biomedical implants and 3D microsystems for miniature instrumentation. Nanotechnology is pervasive within biological systems, from membranes (tens of nanometers thick) that facilitate molecular trafficking into and within cells, to proteins (just a few nanometers in size) that perform most structural and functional duties of living organisms. It therefore stands to reason that tools to enable exploration and characterization of biological nanosystems and materials to enhance and repair these systems will be required to realize the full potential of nanomedicine.

We report an assembled microelectromechanical system (MEMS) electrostatic microcolumn design that employs a multiwall carbon nanotube emitter as an electron source. The microcolumn is designed for a beam diameter of 10–20 nm with a beam energy of 1 keV at currents of up to 1 nA and a 100μm field of view. The maximum voltage on any microcolumn component is ±1kV. The microcolumn components are fabricated on a single 50μm thick silicon on insulator wafer and are assembled to the prefabricated, self-aligning sockets in the device layer using MEMS grippers and connectors to realize an inexpensive and compact microcolumn. The electron beam traverses the entire microcolumn without exposure to any insulator. We have successfully assembled components of this design and operational testing is currently in progress.

We report our study on several de-tethering methods for various metallic and polymeric MEMS and NEMS parts including thick (30~100μm) metallic (nickel and its alloys) MEMS parts, sub-micron (350 nm) feature size 1 μm thick metallic NEMS parts, and thick polymer/metal bi-layer (polymer ~50μm, metal ~2μm) MEMS parts. The conventional stress-based de-tethering used in silicon would not be effective for all of these three types of devices. High current injection through narrow tethers was found to be effective and reproducible means of de-tethering thick metallic MEMS parts. But such a method could not be applied for metallic NEMS and polymer/metal bi-layer MEMS parts, as large areas near tethers were burned even with significantly reduced amount of currents. In order to de-tether these NEMS and polymer/metal bi-layer devices, we performed the milling of tethers using a focused ion beam. Very low current (20 pA) ion beam was found to be very effective means of de-tethering the metallic NEMS parts. Relatively larger current (0.3 nA) was found to be good for the polymer/metal bi-layer parts. We demonstrated 3D assembly and/or complete packaging of some of the de-tethered MEMS parts.