A system and method form charge patterns on micro objects. The system and method employ a micro object including a rectifying device. The rectifying device exhibits an asymmetric current-voltage (I-V) response curve. Further, the system and method employ a device external to the micro object to induce the flow of charge through the rectifying device.

A method of fabricating a semiconductor device, includes, in part, growing a first layer of oxide on a surface of a first semiconductor substrate, forming a layer of insulating material on the oxide layer, patterning and etching the insulating material and the first oxide layer to form a multitude of oxide-insulator structures and further to expose the surface of the semiconductor substrate, growing a second layer of oxide in the exposed surface of the semiconductor substrate, and removing the second layer of oxide thereby to form a cavity in which a MEMS device is formed. The process of growing oxide in the exposed surface of the cavity and removing this oxide may be repeated until the cavity depth reaches a predefined value. Optionally, a multitude of bump stops is formed in the cavity.

An electromechanical device includes a stack formed of an insulating layer interposed between two solid layers, and a micromechanical structure of predetermined thickness suspended above a recess of predetermined depth, the recess and the micromechanical structure forming one of the two solid layers of the stack, and the insulating layer forming the bottom of the recess.

A positioning method in a microprocessing process of bulk silicon comprises the steps of: fabricating, on a first surface of a first substrate (10), a first pattern (100), a stepper photo-etching machine alignment mark (200) for positioning the first pattern, and a double-sided photo-etching machine first alignment mark (300) for positioning the stepper photo-etching machine alignment mark; fabricating, on a second surface, opposite to the first surface, of the first substrate, a double-sided photo-etching machine second alignment mark (400) corresponding to the double-sided photo-etching machine first alignment mark; bonding a second substrate (20) on the first surface of the first substrate; performing thinning on a first surface of the second substrate; fabricating, on the first surface of the second substrate, a double-sided photo-etching machine third alignment mark (500) corresponding to the double-sided photo-etching machine second alignment mark; and finding, on the first surface of the second substrate by using the double-sided photo-etching machine third alignment mark, a corresponding position of the stepper photo-etching machine alignment mark.

A sound producing cell includes a membrane and an actuating layer. The membrane includes a first membrane subpart and a second membrane subpart, wherein the first membrane subpart and the second membrane subpart are opposite to each other. The actuating layer is disposed on the first membrane subpart and the second membrane subpart. The first membrane subpart includes a first anchored edge which is fully or partially anchored, and edges of the first membrane subpart other than the first anchored edge are non-anchored. The second membrane subpart includes a second anchored edge which is fully or partially anchored, and edges of the second membrane subpart other than the second anchored edge are non-anchored.

The plasma-assisted method of precise alignment and pre-bonding for microstructure of glass and quartz microchip belongs to micromachining and bonding technologies of the microchip. The steps of which are as follows: photoresist and chromium layers on glass or quartz microchip are completely removed followed by sufficient cleaning of the surface with nonionic surfactant and quantities of ultra-pure water. Then the surface treatment is proceeded for an equipping surface with high hydrophily with the usage of plasma cleaning device. Under the drying condition, the precise alignment is accomplished through moving substrate and cover plate after being washed with the help of microscope observation. Further on, to achieve precise alignment and pre-bonding of the microstructure of glass and quartz microchip, a minute quantity of ultrapure water is instilled into a limbic crevice for adhesion, and entire water is completely wiped out by vacuum drying following sufficient squeezing. Based on the steps above, it is available to achieve permanent bonding by further adopting thermal bonding method. In summary, it takes within 30 min to finish the whole operation of precise alignment and pre-bonding by this method. Besides, this method is of great promise because of its speediness, efficiency, easy maneuverability, operational safety and wide applications.

A positioning method in a microprocessing process of bulk silicon comprises the steps of: fabricating, on a first surface of a first substrate (10), a first pattern (100), a stepper photo-etching machine alignment mark (200) for positioning the first pattern, and a double-sided photo-etching machine first alignment mark (300) for positioning the stepper photo-etching machine alignment mark; fabricating, on a second surface, opposite to the first surface, of the first substrate, a double-sided photo-etching machine second alignment mark (400) corresponding to the double-sided photo-etching machine first alignment mark; bonding a second substrate (20) on the first surface of the first substrate; performing thinning on a first surface of the second substrate; fabricating, on the first surface of the second substrate, a double-sided photo-etching machine third alignment mark (500) corresponding to the double-sided photo-etching machine second alignment mark; and finding, on the first surface of the second substrate by using the double-sided photo-etching machine third alignment mark, a corresponding position of the stepper photo-etching machine alignment mark.

A method of forming a membrane of a semiconductor membrane device is provided. The method includes providing a silicon on insulator (SOI) substrate having an active silicon layer, a buried oxide (BOX) layer, and a handle wafer. The method further includes determining a membrane area of said substrate, locally removing said BOX layer in at least a part of said membrane area, providing one or more dielectric layers on said active silicon layer, and etching said substrate to form said membrane that includes said one or more dielectric layers in said membrane area. Said etching includes an anisotropic etch through said handle wafer and said active silicon layer using an etch mask defining an etch area, and said etch area overlaps at least a part of said membrane area.

Systems, processes and devices are provided for wafer-level fabrication of a resonator. A process is provided that includes chemical etching of glass and silicon, high-temperature glassblowing, controlling assembly of at least one YIG sphere relative to a nest structure, and plasma assisted wafer bonding. The process can include formation of loop coils and spherical coils defined by the glassblowing process including inner and outer hemispherical structures. The inner hemispherical structure may provide loops to drive and detect resonance in YIG spheres. Processes discussed herein allow for placement of loops in close proximity (e.g., few microns) to ferrimagnetic elements. The outer hemisphere may provide harmonic magnetic coils for frequency tuning. Embodiments are also directed to a resonator including first and second wafer-level glass blown wafer stacks each with inner hemisphere and outer hemispheres. The resonator includes coupling loop coils, tuning coils, and a sphere element nested between glass blown wafer stacks.

A machine vision system and method use lensless near-contact imaging with coherent illumination, or incoherent illumination, and high pixel count large format sensors (e.g., equivalent to at least 20 to 65 mega-pixels) to produce diffraction patterns of the micro-objects or the gray scale images of the micro-objects over a large overall field-of-view of the machine vision system. The machine vision system provides feedback to a microassembler system to position, orient, and assemble microscale devices like micro-LEDs over large working areas. The effective resolution of the machine vision system can be further improved through the use of gray scale and super-resolution image processing techniques.