Abstract
The research activity developed during my Ph.D. program was focused on CMOS-compatible MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) processes and their application to the development of biosensors.
A first activity has been oriented towards the development of a technique to reduce the etching times and increase the freedom in the design of large sus- pended microstructures fabricated by bulk anisotropic etching of silicon. This goal was obtained by pre-patterning of the membrane with periodic convex- corner patterns. Different periodic patterns are proposed and analyzed, exper- imental release times for dielectric membranes are presented.
The second activity research was focused on the design and fabrication im- provement of a magnetically actuated microbalance for biosensing application.
A CMOS-compatible protocol for covalent bonding of organo-functional silanes (to be used as link sites for biomolecular probes) on the microbalance surface was developed. The functionality of the device as a gravimetric sensor was verified. Moreover, a single chip integrated electronic oscillator based on the MEMS resonator was designed. A first prototype of circuit was implemented and characterized.
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