{"id":5594,"date":"2012-07-18T22:28:05","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T22:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2012\/?p=5594"},"modified":"2012-07-18T22:28:05","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T22:28:05","slug":"magnetically-assisted-assembly-alignment-and-orientation-of-micro-scale-components","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2012\/magnetically-assisted-assembly-alignment-and-orientation-of-micro-scale-components\/","title":{"rendered":"Magnetically-assisted Assembly, Alignment, and Orientation of Micro-scale Components"},"content":{"rendered":"

The use of magnetic forces to improve fluidic self-assembly of micro-components has been investigated using Maxwell 3D to model the forces between Ni thin films on semiconductor device micro-pills and Sm-Co thin films patterned on target substrates [1<\/a>] <\/sup>.\u00a0 Orienting and restraining forces on pills far in excess of gravity are predicted, and it is found that the fall-off of these forces with pill-to-substrate separation can be engineered through the proper design of the Sm-Co patterns to retain only properly oriented pills [1<\/a>] <\/sup> [2<\/a>] <\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Micro-scale hybrid assembly is a potentially important way of doing heterogeneous integration, i.e., of integrating new materials on silicon integrated circuits to obtain functionality not readily available from silicon device structures alone, and fluidic self-assembly is an attractive way to automate micro-scale assembly.\u00a0 A serious limitation of fluidic self-assembly, however, is the lack of a good method for holding properly assembled components in place and accurately positioned until all of the components have been assembled and permanently bonded in place.\u00a0 We have shown, based on our modeling, that suitably patterned magnetic films can be used to provide the forces necessary to retain, and to accurately orient and position, assembled micro-components.<\/p>\n

Our motivation for pursuing micro-scale hybrid assembly is our general interest in doing optoelectronic integration, specifically of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELS), edge-emitting lasers (EELs), and light emitting diodes (LEDs), with state-of-the-art, commercially processed Si-CMOS integrated circuits.\u00a0 Our ongoing research integrating these devices on silicon provides the context for this work and illustrates the types of applications we envision for magnetically assisted self-assembly using the results of this study.<\/p>\n

Assembly experiments to verify and demonstrate the theoretical predictions are currently in progress using two sizes of 6-\u00b5m-thick pills (50 \u00b5m by 50 \u00b5m and 50 \u00b5m by 100 \u00b5m) and a variety of magnetic thin film patterns.\u00a0 Recesses with different dimensions are also being studied [3<\/a>] <\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\t\t