In the last decade we have witnessed exciting technological advances in the fabrication and control of microelectromechanical and nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS&NEMS) [16, 19, 26, 54, 55]. Such systems are being developed for a host of nanotechnological applications, such as highly sensitive mass [25, 34, 67], spin [56], and charge detectors [17, 18], as well as for basic research in the m...

Determining the interfacial adhesion of ultrathin functional films in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS) becomes increasingly crucial for optimal design of MEMS/NEMS devices. However, direct measurement of adhesion properties of ultrathin films can be challenging, as the traditional metrology of adhesion at macroscopic scales becomes unsuitable in...

Nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) aremade of electromechanical devices that have critical dimensions from hundreds down to a few nanometers. By exploring nanoscale effects, NEMS present interesting and unique characteristics, which deviate greatly from their predecessor microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). For instance, NEMS-based devices can have fundamental frequencies in the microwave r...

Our work in carbon-microelectromechanical systems (C-MEMS) suggests that C-MEMS might provide a very interesting material and microfabrication approach to battery miniaturization, active DNA arrays and a wide variety of chemical and biological sensors. In C-MEMS, photoresist is patterned by photolithography and subsequently pyrolyzed at high-temperatures in an oxygen-free environment. We establ...

This paper reviews the state of the art knowledge related to critical failure mechanisms in electrostatic microand nano-electromechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS) which are the dielectric charging and stiction. It describes also the recent employed nanoscale characterization techniques for these phenomena based on Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) and force–distance curve measurements. The in...

Abbreviations MEMS Microelectromechanical systems NEMS Nano-electromechanical systems PCL Polycaprolactone PET Polyethylene terephthalate PGA Polyglycolic acid PLA Polylactic acid PU Polyurethane PTFE Poly(tetrafl uoroethylene) PMMA Polymethylmethacrylate UHMWPE Ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene