Tag Archives: letter-mems-tech

STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM), a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, and Jorjin Technologies Inc., a Taipei, Taiwan based company established in 1997 to design and supply modules worldwide, today announced the certification of the dual-radio modules that combine Sigfox wireless-network technology with Bluetooth low energy (BLE).

Jorjin’s WS211x Sigfox/BLE modules benefit from the market-leading performance and energy efficiency of ST’s BlueNRG-1 BLE System-on-Chip (SoC) and the S2-LP sub-1GHz RF transceiver. These advantages have enabled Jorjin’s modules to deliver cutting-edge connectivity and great battery lifetime, targeting coin-cell -operated or energy-harvesting IoT applications.

Fully programmable devices, Jorjin’s new Sigfox modules exploit the ultra-low power Arm® Cortex®-M0 technology embedded in ST’s BLE SoC to act as independent IoT connectivity nodes. The combination of BLE with Sigfox’ low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) provides key benefits to IoT systems, such as firmware update over-the-air, which is not possible with conventional ‘Sigfox-only’ modules. Other benefits of having an IoT device connected both remotely through the Sigfox network and locally through BLE include the possibility to modify device settings during installation or maintenance, or to trace assets, which often change their position inside an area covered with BLE beacon stations.

“We are excited to achieve certification for our first Sigfox-compatible modules,” said Jorjin Technologies chairman Tom Liang. “STMicroelectronics and Sigfox teams’ support has been very helpful and we are looking forward to keeping expanding our collaboration with both partners.”

“The successful certification marks a significant milestone in our cooperation with Jorjin, delivering high-performance, ultra-low-power dual-radio Sigfox modules,” said Maria Rosa Borghi, Low Power RF BU Senior Director, Analog, MEMS and Sensors Group, STMicroelectronics. “Designers now get a cutting-edge solution for building high-mobility products with versatile connectivity and low power budget across all IoT segments.”

“We are glad to welcome Jorjin to our ever-expanding ecosystem and to partner once again with ST for the acceleration of the adoption of the IoT among the different verticals. The certification of the Jorjin module will allow us to boost the production of Sigfox-enabled devices answering a growing demand from our clients,” said Raouti Chehih, Sigfox Chief Adoption Officer.

The evaluation board for the WS211x modules uses the Arduino interface to ease customer development and is compatible with ST’s Arduino shield boards featuring MEMS motion sensors, environmental sensors, or Time-of-Flight (ToF) ranging sensors. An SDK is available from Jorjin enabling customers to develop applications using WS211x modules with ST’s sensor shield boards, as well as an AT command list facilitating customers test of the modules’ BLE and Sigfox functions.

Sensera Inc. (MicroDevices) has acquired and qualified a SPTS ASE-HRM etch platform. This etcher adds capability to the fab that was previously outsourced to partners. This is a key process technology development tool to bring complex MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) to market.

This system offers market leading etch rates while controlling ion damage through a de-coupled plasma source. The HRM is ideal for deep anisotropic silicon etching at high rates with the STS ASE process. This technology eliminates sidewall breakdown, which results in enhanced process performance and a high device yield.

“We are very pleased to bring to our customers additional Deep Reactive Ion Etch (DRIE) capabilities. This equipment supplements Sensera’s existing etch tool set and enables increased throughput and improved etch uniformity to meet our customers’ rapidly growing demand,” said Tim Stucchi, COO of Sensera’s MicroDevices division.

“ClassOne Equipment was happy to provide this advanced etch platform to Sensera. We have worked with many etch platforms and the SPTS ASE-HRM delivers excellent etch performance with a low cost of ownership. ClassOne maintains a close partnership with our customers and is proud of a long history of customer satisfaction. This is our second installation at Sensera, and we recently took the first steps in a new project, look for more exciting news later this year,” said Byron Exarcos, CEO of ClassOne Equipment.

“We continue to add new capabilities to our fab in order to drive down cycle time, control quality and improve costs,” stated Ralph Schmitt, CEO of Sensera Inc. “These are important steps as we move many of our customers to commercial volume shipments. This is all part of the strategy of the company to have internal capability to develop complex MEMS.”

In a new paper published by Nano Energy, experts from the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) at the University of Surrey detail a new methodology that allows designers of smart-wearables to better understand and predict how their products would perform once manufactured and in use.

The technology is centred on materials that become electrically charged after they come into contact with each other, known as ‘triboelectric materials’ – for example, a comb through hair can create an electrical charge. ‘Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENGs)’ use this static charge to harvest energy from movement through a process called electrostatic induction. Over the years, a variety of TENGs have been designed which can convert almost any type of movement into electricity. The University of Surrey’s tool gives manufacturers an accurate understanding of the output power their design would create once produced.

This follows the news earlier this year of the ATI announcing the creation of its £4million state-of-the-art Nano-Manufacturing Hub. The new facility will produce plastic nanoscale electronics for wearable sensors, electronic tags and other electronic devices.

Ishara Dharmasena, lead scientist on this project from the University of Surrey, said: “The future global energy mix will depend on renewable energy sources such as solar power, wind, motion, vibrations and tidal. TENGs are a leading technology to capture and convert motion energy into electricity, extremely useful in small scale energy harvesting applications. Our work will, for the first time, provide universal guidance to develop, compare and improve various TENG designs. We expect this technology in household and industrial electronic products, catering to a new generation of mobile and autonomous energy requirements.”

Professor Ravi Silva, Director of the Advanced Technology Institute, said: “This is truly an exciting area of research for our team – an area we have been working on over a number of years. We believe that our new tool will be of great help to a lot of researchers and designers who are investigating these materials.

“The world urgently needs new forms of affordable and renewable energy sources. TENGs not only present a wonderful opportunity for the consumer electronics industry, but they are an incredibly exciting material group that could be used in all countries and remote locations where the nation grid does not extend, particularly for radios, wireless communication devices and medical equipment.”

What makes the Vivo X20 Plus UD smartphone so important is that it is the first smartphone to use Synaptics’ under-display fingerprint sensor, and it has the potential to bite into Apple’s face recognition technology, announced the Teardowns service of ABI Research, a market-foresight advisory firm providing strategic guidance on the most compelling transformative technologies.

(PRNewsfoto/ABI Research)

(PRNewsfoto/ABI Research)

Traditional fingerprint sensors are either embedded under the home key on the front of the mobile phone or on the back of the phone. Placing the fingerprint sensor under the display on the front of the mobile phone should allow for a borderless display on three sides of the display. The top still requires room for the front camera, proximity sensor, and receiver, etc. However, Vivo did not take full advantage of the new fingerprint technology from Synaptics. Vivo retained a significant border below the display along the bottom of the phone.

“Vivo may have been cautious to fully commit to the new technology and left room to fall back to a traditional sensor below the display,” said Jim Mielke, ABI Research’s vice president of the Teardowns service. “The performance of this first implementation does warrant some caution as the sensor seemed less responsive and required increased pressure to unlock the phone.”

Smartphone manufacturers are continually trying to achieve the truly borderless phone, and currently there are only three ways to achieve and still maintain biometric security: fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone, fingerprint sensor under the display, and facial/retina-based recognition. Despite the non-optimal capabilities, the Vivo X20 Plus UD is well ahead of Apple’s face recognition technology.

“Face recognition on smartphones is five times easier to spoof than fingerprint recognition,” stated ABI Research Industry Analyst Dimitrios Pavlakis (“Executive Foresights: Did Apple Miss the Bus – The Display – Integrated Fingerprint Sensor Gives the Industry a Much-Needed Push“). “Despite the decision to forgo its trademark sapphire sensor in the iPhone X in favor of face recognition (FaceID,) Apple may be now forced to return to fingerprints in the next iPhone,” added Pavlakis.

Fingerprint sensors are increasingly becoming more relevant with a host of new banking, financial institution and payment service providers getting behind the technology.

Vivo, a 9-year-old company based in China, was smart to partner with California-based Synaptics, which has 30-plus years of experience in the “human interface revolution” by offering touch, display and biometrics products.

ABI Research’s Teardowns reports feature ultra-high-resolution imaging, pinpoint power measurements, detailed parts list with fully costed BOMs (bill of materials), block diagrams and x-rays. ABI Research performs the highest resolution imagery in the teardown industry, providing unprecedented competitive analysis on components, cost, and chip system functionality.

A novel invention by a team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) holds promise for a faster and cheaper way to diagnose diseases with high accuracy. Professor Zhang Yong from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the NUS Faculty of Engineering and his team have developed a tiny microfluidic chip that could effectively detect minute amounts of biomolecules without the need for complex lab equipment.

Diseases diagnostics involves detection and quantification of nano-sized bio-particles such as DNA, proteins, viruses, and exosomes (extracellular vesicles). Typically, detection of biomolecules such as proteins are performed using colorimetric assays or fluorescent labelling with a secondary antibody for detection, and requires complex optical detection equipment such as fluorescent microscopy or spectrophotometry.

One alternative to reduce cost and complexity of disease detection is the adoption of label-free techniques, which are gaining traction in recent times. However, this approach requires precision engineering of nano-features (in a detection chip), complex optical setups, novel nano-probes (such as graphene oxide, carbon nanotubes, and gold nanorods) or additional amplification steps such as aggregation of nanoparticles to achieve sensitive detection of biomarkers.

“Our invention is an example of disruptive diagnostics. This tiny biochip can sensitively detect proteins and nano-sized polymer vesicles with a concentration as low as 10ng/mL (150 pM) and 3.75μg/mL respectively. It also has a very small footprint, weighing only 500 mg and is 6mm³ in size. Detection can be performed using standard laboratory microscopes, making this approach highly attractive for use in point-of-care diagnostics,” explained Prof Zhang.

His team, comprising Dr Kerwin Kwek Zeming and two NUS PhD students Mr Thoriq Salafi and Ms Swati Shikha, published their findings in scientific journal Nature Communications on 28 March 2018.

Novel approach for disease diagnosis

This novel fluorescent label-free approach uses the lateral shifts in the position of the microbead substrate in pillar arrays, for quantifying the biomolecules, based on the change in surface forces and size, without the need of any external equipment. Due to the usage of lateral displacement, the nano-biomolecules can be detected in real-time and the detection is significantly faster in comparison to fluorescent label based detection.

“These techniques can also be extended to many other types of nano-biomolecules, including nucleic acid and virus detection. To complement this chip technology, we are also developing a portable smartphone-based accessory and microfluidic pump to make the whole detection platform portable for outside laboratory disease diagnostics. We hope to further develop this technology for commercialisation,” said Prof Zhang.

BY GUIDO GROESENEKEN, imec fellow

To be able to guarantee the reliability of transistors, we have been conducting research for some years now at imec to see what happens when transistors operate properly and when they fail. We’ve been doing this in terms of circuits, devices and materials – and sometimes right down to the level of atoms. The insights that we gather from this work help us to provide the right feedback to the process technol- ogists, who in turn are able to make the transistors more reliable. It is particularly interesting to note that in recent years the knowledge we have gained about these failure mechanisms can also be applied to other areas. These insights no longer only serve to solve problems, but are the basis for innovative and surprising solutions in very diverse domains.
Last year, imec spent a lot of time working on self- learning chips, data security codes, FinFET biosensors and computer systems that can correct themselves. These are innovations that draw on the knowledge present in imec’s reliability group.

Self-learning chips

For example, take the self-learning or neuromorphic chip that gave imec such extensive coverage in the media in 2017. The development of this chip is based, among other things, on our knowledge of “resistive RAM” or RRAM memories, which use the breakdown of an oxide to switch a memory bit on or off (0 or 1). This oxide breakdown – which was previously (and still is) a reliability problem – occurs because a conductive path is created through the oxide, known as a filament. However, the work conducted by imec’s reliability group has demonstrated that not only can you create a filament or make it disappear, but that there are intermediate levels as well, which means that the strength of the filament can be controlled. And that is precisely what happens in our brains: the connec- tions between neurons can become stronger or weaker according to the occurrence they are processing or the learning process they use, etc. This means that these RRAM filaments can be used in chips that work like our brains. It was this insight that provided us with the foundation for the development of imec’s neuromorphic chip, which – as has been demonstrated – can even compose music.

Data security

Since recently we are also working closely with COSIC, an imec research group at KU Leuven that specializes in computer security and cryptography. Also here we can draw on our knowledge of transistor breakdown mechanisms. These can be used to create and read out a fingerprint that is unique for each chip and that cannot be predicted, hence the name ‘physically unclonable functions’ (or PUFs). This unique fingerprint makes it possible to ascertain the identity of chips in data exchanges and thus to prevent hacking by means of rogue chips.

The phenomenon of ‘Random Telegraph Noise’, which has long been known in the area of transistor reliability, could also be used as a security fingerprint. Random telegraph noise is a name for sudden jumps in voltage or current levels as the result of the random trapping of charges in traps within the gate insulation of a transistor. This phenomenon is unpredictable and random, and hence it could also be perfectly usable as PUF. What was once a problem for us – the breakdown of oxides or the existence of random telegraph noise – is now at the base of major new solutions for computer security.

Biosensors

A third example of discipline-overlapping innovation brings us to the world of life sciences. FinFET transistors are essential for the current and future generations of computer chips. As a result of the research carried out in our group, we have now found out a great deal about the way the work, including their failure mechanisms, etc. So much so that we can now explore the possibility to use them as biosensors. What happens is that biomolecules have a certain charge and when that charge comes into the vicinity of a FinFET, the current in the FinFET will be influ- enced. As a result, there is the potential that the presence of a single biomolecule can be detected by such a FinFET.

Self-healing chips

And, finally, we are also working with system architects to produce reliable chips, even with transistors that are no longer reliable. Extremely small transistors with dimen- sions smaller than 5 nanometers can be very variable and the way they behave is unpredictable. For that reason we are working with system architects on solutions such as self- healing chips, based among other things on the existing models of the failure mechanisms that we provide them with. These self-healing chips will contain monitors that detect local errors. A smart controller then interprets this information and decides how to solve the problem, after which actuators are directed by the controller to carry out the task required.

What about scaling?

Numerous methods are currently being investigated to ensure that transistors can still be miniaturized and improved for as long as possible, as propounded in Moore’s Law. To do so, the classic transistor architecture has already been replaced by a FinFET architecture and in the future this will evolve even to nanosheets or nanowires. Materials other than silicon, with greater mobility, are also being looked at, such as III-V materials (germanium for pMOS and InGaAs for nMOS).

In the choice made for these future architecture, it is extremely important to also look right from the start to the failure mechanisms and reliability of the new solutions.

As an example, last year, our reliability team focused extensively on III-V transistors. Although these transistors score well in terms of mobility, their stability is still one of the main challenges remaining before we are able to take the next step and start manufacturing. The insulation layers in III-V transistors contain a lot of traps that cause this insta- bility in transistor characteristics. Understanding this phenomenon is essential if we are to find a solution for it. So, a breakthrough in this area is needed urgently and our results, which were published in a recent IEDM paper, are certainly a step in the right direction. In the invited paper by Jacopo Franco these instabilities are first analyzed in detail. Then, based on this analysis, practical guidelines are given for the development of III-V gate stacks that offer sufficient reliability.

It’s very difficult to look ahead even further into the future, because as the end of Moore’s Law approaches, increasing numbers of different technologies and concepts are already on the radar (quantum computers, 2D materials, neuro- morphic computers, spinwave logic, etc.). However, none of these concepts has yet made a real breakthrough. But in my view 2017 was the year in which the industry began to take a strong interest in quantum computers, with major investments from important players such as Google and Intel. Imec also plans to play a major role in this field, with the launch of a new program on quantum computing, gathering the extensive expertise available. In the past, quantum computing has been considered more as a purely academic field of research – something of value for physi- cists at universities, but not for engineers and companies. So perhaps the breakthrough of industrial quantum computing will be the next milestone in the history of electronics. Or perhaps this milestone will come from a totally unexpected angle – by combining knowledge and people from entirely different disciplines, creating totally new ideas and concepts. Only the future will tell us!

CEA-Leti, a French technology research institute of the CEA and Inac, a joint fundamental research institute between the CEA and the University Grenoble Alpes, today announced a breakthrough towards large-scale fabrication of quantum bits, or qubits, the elementary bricks of future quantum processors. They demonstrated on a 300 mm pre-industrial platform a new level of isotopic purification in a film deposited by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). This enables creating qubits in thin layers of silicon using a very high purity silicon isotope, 28Si, which produces a crystalline quality comparable to thin films usually made of natural silicon.

“Using the isotope 28Si instead of natural silicon is crucial for the optimization of the fidelity of the silicon spin qubit,” said Marc Sanquer, a research director at Inac. “The fidelity of the spin qubit is limited to small values by the presence of nuclear spins in natural silicon. But spin qubit fidelity is greatly enhanced by using 28Si, which has zero nuclear spin. We expect to confirm this with qubits fabricated in a pre-industrial CMOS platform at CEA-Leti.” 

Qubits are the building blocks of quantum information. They can be made in a broad variety of material systems, but when it comes to the crucial issue of large-scale integration, the range of possible choices narrows significantly. Silicon spin qubits have a small size and are compatible with CMOS technology. They therefore present advantages for large-scale integration compared to other types of qubits.

Since 2012, when the first qubits that relied on electron spins were reported, the introduction of isotopically purified 28Si has led to significant enhancement of the spin coherence time. The longer spin coherence lasts, the better the fidelity of the quantum operations.

Quantum effects are essential to understanding how basic silicon micro-components work, but the most interesting quantum effects, such as superposition and entanglement, are not used in circuits. The CEA-Leti and Inac results showed that these effects can be implemented in CMOS transistors operated at low temperature.

CEA-Leti and Inac previously reported preliminary steps for demonstrating a qubit in a process utilizing a natural silicon-on-insulator (SOI) 300 mm CMOS platform1. The qubit is an electrically controlled spin carried by a single hole in a SOI transistor. In a paper published in npj Quantum Information2., CEA-Leti and Inac reported that an electron spin in a SOI transistor can also be manipulated by pure electrical signals, which enable fast and scalable spin qubits.

“To progress towards a practical and useful quantum processor, it is now essential to scale up the qubit,” said Louis Hutin, a research engineer in CEA-Leti’s Silicon Components Division. “This development will have to address variability, reproducibility and electrostatic control quality for elementary quantum bricks, as is done routinely for standard microprocessors.”

To help CEA-Leti and Inac leverage nuclear spin free silicon in the CMOS platform, a silicon precursor was supplied by Air Liquide, using an isotopically purified silane of very high isotopic purity with a 29Si isotope content of less than 0.00250 percent, prepared by the Institute of Chemistry of High-Purity Substances at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The 29Si isotope is present at 4.67 percent in natural silicon and is the only stable isotope of silicon that carries a nuclear spin limiting the qubit coherence time.

A secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) analysis done on the CVD-grown layer using this purified silane precursor showed29Si concentration less than 0.006 percent, and 30Si less than 0.002 percent, while 28Si concentration was more than 99.992 percent. These unprecedented levels of isotopic purification for a CVD-grown epilayer on 300 mm substrates are associated with surfaces that are smooth at the atomic scale, as verified by atomic force microscopy (AFM), haze and X-ray reflectometry measurements.

Leveraging their scientific and technological expertise, and the specific opportunities associated with the 300 mm silicon platform on the Minatec campus, CEA-Leti and Inac will continue to contribute to the scientific, technological and industrial dynamic on quantum technologies, enhanced by the implementation of the EC’s FET Flagships initiative in this domain.

  1. “A CMOS silicon spin qubit”, arXiv:1605.07599 Nature Communications 7, Article number: 13575 (2016) doi:10.1038/ncomms13575
  1. “Electrically driven electron spin resonance mediated by spin-valley-orbit coupling in a silicon quantum dot”, Nature PJ Quantum Information (2018) 4:6; doi:10.1038/s41534-018-0059-1

Imec, a research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, today presented its annual Lifetime of Innovation Award to Dr. Irwin Jacobs, Founding Chairman and CEO Emeritus of Qualcomm. The annual industry honor is presented to the individual who has significantly advanced the field of semiconductor technology.  The formal presentation will be made at the global Imec Technology Forum (ITF) in May in Belgium.

In making the announcement, Luc Van den hove, president and CEO of imec, said: “Irwin Jacobs’ many technological contributions laid the groundwork for creating the mobile industry and markets that we know today. Under his leadership, Qualcomm developed two-way mobile satellite communications and tracking systems deemed the most advanced in the world. He pioneered spread-spectrum technology and systems using CDMA (code division multiple access), which became a digital standard for cellular phone communications. Together, these technologies opened mobile communications to the global consumer market.”

Irwin Jacobs began his career first as an assistant and then associate professor of electrical engineering at MIT and, later, as professor of computer science and engineering at the University of California in San Diego. While at MIT, he co-authored Principles of Communication Engineering, a textbook still in use. He began his corporate life as a cofounder of Linkabit, which developed satellite encryption devices.  In 1985, he co-founded Qualcomm, serving as CEO until 2005 and chairman through 2009.  His numerous awards include the National Medal of Technology, the Marconi Prize, and the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.  His honors include nine honorary degrees including doctor of engineering from the National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.

Imec initiated the Lifetime of Innovation Award in 2015 at their annual global forum known as ITF (Imec Technology Forum).  The award marks milestones that have transformed the semiconductor industry.  The first recipient was Dr. Morris Chang, whose foundry model launched the fabless semiconductor industry, spurring creation of new innovative companies.  In 2016, Gordon Moore was honored, creator of the famous Moore’s law theory and co-founder of Intel.  Dr. Kinam Kim was honored in 2017 for his contributions in memory technologies and his visionary leadership at Samsung.

Luc Van den hove concluded, saying: “Our mission is to create innovation through collaboration. By gathering global technology leaders at the ITF, imec provides an open forum to share issues and trends challenging the semiconductor industry. In this international exchange, imec and participants outline ways to collaborate in bringing innovative solutions to market.”

People are growing increasingly dependent on their mobile phones, tablets and other portable devices that help them navigate daily life. But these gadgets are prone to failure, often caused by small defects in their complex electronics, which can result from regular use. Now, a paper in today’s Nature Electronics details an innovation from researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York that provides robust protection against circuitry damage that affects signal transmission.

The breakthrough was made in the lab of Andrea Alù, director of the ASRC’s Photonics Initiative. Alù and his colleagues from The City College of New York, University of Texas at Austin and Tel Aviv University were inspired by the seminal work of three British researchers who won the 2016 Noble Prize in Physics for their work, which teased out that particular properties of matter (such as electrical conductivity) can be preserved in certain materials despite continuous changes in the matter’s form or shape. This concept is associated with topology–a branch of mathematics that studies the properties of space that are preserved under continuous deformations.

“In the past few years there has been a strong interest in translating this concept of matter topology from material science to light propagation,” said Alù. “We achieved two goals with this project: First, we showed that we can use the science of topology to facilitate robust electromagnetic-wave propagation in electronics and circuit components. Second, we showed that the inherent robustness associated with these topological phenomena can be self-induced by the signal traveling in the circuit, and that we can achieve this robustness using suitably tailored nonlinearities in circuit arrays.”

To achieve their goals, the team used nonlinear resonators to mold a band-diagram of the circuit array. The array was designed so that a change in signal intensity could induce a change in the band diagram’s topology. For low signal intensities, the electronic circuit was designed to support a trivial topology, and therefore provide no protection from defects. In this case, as defects were introduced into the array, the signal transmission and the functionality of the circuit were negatively affected.

As the voltage was increased beyond a specific threshold, however, the band-diagram’s topology was automatically modified, and the signal transmission was not impeded by arbitrary defects introduced across the circuit array. This provided direct evidence of a topological transition in the circuitry that translated into a self-induced robustness against defects and disorder.

“As soon as we applied the higher-voltage signal, the system reconfigured itself, inducing a topology that propagated across the entire chain of resonators allowing the signal to transmit without any problem,” said A. Khanikaev, professor at The City College of New York and co-author in the study. “Because the system is nonlinear, it’s able to undergo an unusual transition that makes signal transmission robust even when there are defects or damage to the circuitry.”

“These ideas open up exciting opportunities for inherently robust electronics and show how complex concepts in mathematics, like the one of topology, can have real-life impact on common electronic devices,” said Yakir Hadad, lead author and former postdoc in Alù’s group, currently a professor at Tel-Aviv University, Israel. “Similar ideas can be applied to nonlinear optical circuits and extended to two and three-dimensional nonlinear metamaterials.”

3-D printing has gained popularity in recent years as a means for creating a variety of functional products, from tools to clothing and medical devices. Now, the concept of multi-dimensional printing has helped a team of researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York develop a new, potentially more efficient and cost-effective method for preparing biochips (also known as microarrays), which are used to screen for and analyze biological changes associated with disease development, bioterrorism agents, and other areas of research that involve biological components.

Biological probes are patterned into biochips using nanoscopic light-pens, allowing researchers to increase the number of probes that can be immobilized in a single chip. Credit: Advanced Science Research Center at the Graduate Center, CUNY

Biological probes are patterned into biochips using nanoscopic light-pens, allowing researchers to increase the number of probes that can be immobilized in a single chip. Credit: Advanced Science Research Center at the Graduate Center, CUNY

In a paper published today in the journal Chem, researchers with the ASRC’s Nanoscience Initiative detail how they have combined microfluidic techniques with beam-pen lithography and photochemical surface reactions to devise a new biochip printing technique. The method involves exposing a biochip’s surface to specific organic reagents, and then using a tightly focused beam of light to adhere the immobilized reagents to the chip’s surface. The process allows scientists to repeatedly expose a single chip to the same or different factors and imprint the reactions onto different sections of the biochip. The result is a biochip that can accommodate more probes than is achievable with current commercial platforms.

“This is essentially a new nanoscale printer that allows us to imprint more complexity on the surface of biochip than any of the currently available commercial technologies,” said Adam Braunschweig, lead researcher and associate professor with the ASRC’s Nanoscience Initiative. “It will help us to gain much better understanding of how cells and biological pathways work.”

An additional benefit of the new tool is that it allows researchers to reliably print on a variety of delicate materials–including glasses, metals, and lipids–on the length scale of biological interactions, and without the use of a clean room. It also allows scientists to fit more reactive probes onto a single chip. These improvements could, in theory, reduce the cost of biochip-facilitated research.

ASRC scientists are now exploring ways to fine tune their new technique for creating these biochips. “We want to be able to record even more complex surface interactions and reduce our resolution down to a single molecule,” said ASRC Research Associate Carlos Carbonell, the paper’s lead author. “This technique gives rise to a new method of microarray creation that should be useful to the entire field of biological ‘omics’ research.”