Unit Five Microsystems Technology How does Micro Technology Affect Me? Lesson Objectives: Students will be able to do the following: • Identify one industry that uses microtechnology • Describe two inventions that affect everyday life • Compare and contrast micromachines with their larger counterparts Warning! Warning! This information is becoming obsolete as it is being written. By the time you receive this packet, the future may be the past. Nanotechnology is growing so fast that is difficult to keep up with the new machines being invented on an hourly basis. There are several interesting sites on the web that have fantastic photographs of some of these inventions. Sandia Laboratories web page and the University of Wisconsin MEMS page are two that I would recommend. The reference list also will lead you to pages from Scientific American and Popular Mechanics that give complete articles on the following material. Where might we find these machines tomorrow? Look no farther than the grocery store, manufacturing plants, automobiles, or even your blood stream. Let’s take a closer look at some of the machines that nanotechnology has allowed us to produce. Micromachines Helping Consumers Microsensors sent up a tiny antenna. The have been information is passed developed that along to the computer database via can test the radio waves. Alert! Alert! The chemistry of chemical properties are measuring seawater but outside normal ranges. The juice is consider even spoiled. The customer receives a smaller machines that can be used fresh container of juice and crisis is in other liquids such as your morning averted. No sick customers. No juice. As your juice is being scanned lawsuits. These tiny sensors were at the check out, a microscopic first developed by a husband and “electronic tongue” detects a change wife engineering team, Vijay and in the surface tension or “stickiness” Vasundara Varadan, at of the liquid. The minielectronic Pennsylvania State University in soldier gets to work to further 1998. The sensors can float freely in investigate. The microscopic sensor products, because they are so small. measures the chemical properties of They are also totally wireless, the liquid. The information is then sending and receiving information using radio waves or microwaves. Project Oceanography 83 Spring 2001 Unit Five Microsystems Technology Micromachines Helping Researchers Scientists are that would fit on one silicon chip is experimenting possible by the year 2005. This is with important because it paves the way miniexplosions in for miniaturization in other fields, the hopes of including the construction of key creating enough components in the expanding voice force to start a activated technologies industries. reaction that could complete a task on a much Miniature microphones are also in bigger object. The miniexplosives or the news. Engineers in Denmark and rocket propellants are stored in Germany have created silicon chips cavities of the integrated circuits of about two a microchip, because they provide millimeters convenient containers. By igniting square which one or more explosive at a time, contain many scientists can control the intensity of condenser the thrust produced. Since the microphones microchips containing the explosions that sense the take up little room, many microchips waves can be equipped with materials to created as cause explosions over long periods sound is converted to an electrical of time, even over years. In this way, signal. These are unique, because drugs could be pulsed through a they work as well as conventional system or a satellite could be microphones ten times their size. reoriented in space. Other European scientists have created what they call a The demand for smaller and “microflown”. This instrument has no smaller technical devices moving parts but actually senses the has led researchers to “wind” that accompanies a moving try to continue to shrink wave. What does all this the size of electronic mean? Highly sensitive equipment that sensors can be made people use cost effectively to help everyday. For in a wide variety of jobs instance, Peter such as detecting Gammell and his colleagues at Bell underwater mines in Labs/Lucent Technologies have murky water or helping further reduced the size of three someone to hear with a components of a cell phone. They truly invisible hearing aid. have predicted, with their advances in nanotechnology, a cell phone Project Oceanography 84 Spring 2001 Unit Five Microsystems Technology Micromachines Helping Doctors Micromachine assistants may soon machines made from these allow doctors to be everywhere. techniques could be used to pump Scientists envision micromachines fluids through the body. made from one molecule that could “swim” through the blood stream As doctors today use lasers to enter detecting and the body in less invasive procedures, destroying imagine instruments designed to harmful viruses. enter human cells. These laser This dream tweezers and scissors cut and hold comes closer to cell parts trapped in beams of light. reality every day Laser scissors have been around for as researchers about thirty years. These beams of refine their nanotechnology light are called scissors, because fabrication techniques. An assistant they can make permanent changes professor of agriculture and in cells even though scientists do not biological engineering at Cornell know the exact mechanism. University, Carlo Montemagno, has Scientists can reproduce the results created a tiny motor made from a without injuring the other cell parts. single molecule of ATPase bonded In the past few years, laser tweezers to a nickel foundation. In the cell, first developed in the 1980’s, have ATPase changes food into usable been refined to the point that they energy. During this process, the can actually grasp individual central protein part of the ATPase molecules. The use of laser scissors rotates just as the propeller on a and tweezers together allows motor does. With genetic scientists to manipulate small manipulation, scientists were able to elements of the cell that are part of control the movement of this the cell’s reproductive process. By propeller and actually start and stop working with the components its rotation. This research has laid important in cell division, scientists the foundation for nanofabrication of could unlock the mysteries of cancer hybrid systems made from both and birth defects. living and nonliving materials. The Micromachines Helping the World As microtechnology with hazardous waste materials. We becomes may be able to create synthetic food nanotechnology the sources, so people would not be possibilities are endless. hungry. If someone were injured, we Imagine all the jobs that may be able to piece tiny blood microscopic machines could do such vessels back together with as cleaning up pollution or working microvelcro. The future is now! Project Oceanography 85 Spring 2001 Unit Five Microsystems Technology Activity: Micromachines Vocabulary Builder Mechanical Electronic MEMS Nanotechnology Micro Atoms Semiconductors Miniature Nano Scanning Tunneling Microscopes Fill in the blank with the correct word. 1. _______________devices have moving parts. 2. _______________are the smallest building blocks of any substance. 3. _______________means one millionth. 4. _______________are micromachines with electrical and mechanical parts. 5. _______________are instruments that help scientists to move and position individual molecules. 6. _______________are the base components of microchips. 7. _______________items are smaller in size than the originals. 8. _______________devices control the movement of electrons through a gas, vacuum, or semiconductor. 9. _______________is a term that is used to describe the smallest microscopic things. 10._______________is used to build electronic circuits and devices from molecules and atoms. Project Oceanography 86 Spring 2001 Unit Five Microsystems Technology Vocabulary Builder Answer Key 1. Mechanical 2. Atoms 3. Micro 4. MEMS 5. Scanning Tunneling Microscopes 6. Semiconductors 7. Miniature 8. Electronic 9. Nano 10.Nanotechnology Project Oceanography 87 Spring 2001 Unit Five Microsystems Technology Activity: Future Micromachines’ Commercial Throughout history inventions were created that have made our lives easier. Some of the things we use today were unheard of years ago. The new frontier in science today includes the microenvironment where today’s discoveries are leading to new inventions for the future. Objectives: Students will be able to do the following: 1. Design a futuristic micromachine 2. Create a presentation to sell their micromachine. 3. Explain their micromachine to an audience. Materials: • Research materials such as magazines, newspapers, or Internet • Paper and pencil • Art supplies to create a brochure (This could also be done on a computer.) • Props created by the students Procedure: 1. Discuss with students current world problems that may be solved with the invention of micromachines. 2. Have students research some of the current literature on new micromachine inventions and technology. 3. Have students work in pairs to design a micromachine. 4. Have student pairs develop a brochure for prospective customers of their machine. 5. Have students give a presentation that would advertise their machine. (This could be a live presentation or video taped ahead of time.) 6. Be sure students include the following information in their written materials and oral presentations: The name of the invention The purpose