Selective Pick-and-Place of Thin Film by Robotic Micromanipulation

Micro-engineering is increasingly interested in the use of thin films with thicknesses of less than 20nm. Before integrating these promising materials into complex Nano Electro Mechanical Systems (NEMS), their properties must be characterized. They must be transferred onto specific substrates for analysis. Current manipulation techniques are not suitable for the transfer of these thin films as they do not allow selection of the parts of the object that must be manipulated, and the quality of the sample is altered by traces of chemical residues. To perform the transfer of a selected thin film without modifying its properties, this paper presents a novel approach based on local gluing. This method has been validated by experiments performed on graphite films. Successful transfers of thin films of 4.2 × 4.7 μm2 to 70 × 12 μm2 with an estimated thickness of between 10 and 40 layers have been demonstrated. Limits of this technique are discussed.