Nanostructured Origami (TM) : folding thin films out of the plane of a silicon wafer with highly stressed chromium hinges

This thesis addresses the construction of complex three-dimensional (3-D) nanostructures using only 2-D, planar nano-fabrication techniques. In the state of the art, multiple 2-D layers are fabricated in series, each directly on top of the previous. The method advocated here is Nanostructured Origami, in which multiple adjacent 2-D layers are fabricated in parallel and are then folded into the desired 3-D configuration using the appropriate folding sequence. This thesis focuses on folding actuation for this method using the residual tensile stress in vacuum-evaporated chromium to fold silicon nitride membranes. Our results conclusively demonstrate the ability to pattern these membranes with nano-scale features and then controllably fold them into a predetermined 3-D configuration. Future work will refine the fabrication procedure for large-scale manufacturing and address alignment and latching of the folded membranes.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Arora, William Jay

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• George Barbastathis and Henry I. Smith.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33107

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33107