| High aspect ratio microstructures (HARMS) fabrication techniques are of interest to the MEMS and nanofabrication research community since they have a potential to provide MEMS devices with increased structural rigidity, lower driving voltage, higher actuation force, and larger displacement in electrostatic actuator systems by increasing the change of overlapped electrode area, higher sensitivity for MEMS sensors by virtue of large mass, especially in inertial sensor applications, and larger magnetic forces for magnetic MEMS due to the increase in volume.; In this thesis, two of the most common HARMS fabrication techniques, the LIGA and UV-LIGA processes, have been further optimized and used to develop the novel fabrication processes and applied to develop the demonstrating MEMS devices. A novel polymeric and metallic HARMS replication and reproduction process has been developed. A hollow metallic microneedle array based on a novel fabrication process was fabricated and characterized. Various types of metallic microgrippers were also designed, fabricated, and characterized. |
