Report Microtechnology

Project Report Name ___________________________

EGT-280: Introduction to Microtechnology

Cover Page

Report #1

Name of the Project:_____________________________

Your Name:__________________

Submitted to:

Dr. S.M. Allameh

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for

EGT-280:

Introduction to Microtechnology

Department of Physics and Geology

Northern Kentucky University

Date:_______________

Name of Report: ______________________

Your Name: __________________

Abstract:

Provide your report with an abstract. This section should briefly describe the subject of the report, its significance, what has been done in the work presented and what has been achieved. The length should not exceed one paragraph with 100-150 words. No pictures, references, bulletized or numbered phrases are necessary. Central idea comes in the first sentence.

Introduction:

Start your report with a short note on the importance of the work you are presenting as well as its historical background. State the evolution of the process or functionality of the products you are evaluating, designing or devising from manual to mechanized processes. State how other people approached the same objective and how long ago solutions started to appear in the literature or on the market. Use the library, web, books, professors and colleagues to investigate the background information.

Prior Work:

Here you cite the work of others in this field, starting with the oldest to the most recent development, process or product. Your lab work must be referenced properly. Use a referencing system such as EndNote, RefWorks, or any other citation software. NKU provides faculty and students with free access to a referencing software. The instructor uses EndNote, but students are free to choose their own. You may visit Steely Library either online or in person and access the databases that are accessible to you. If you do not know how to do so, please consult a librarian. A list of 5-15 references may be appropriate for your report. Occasionally hundreds of references are provided to the readers for further study of the subject. You may provide various views on the subject both positive and negative, and stay impartial in presenting the opposing views. You may side with one viewpoint at the end in the discussion of the results section. Of course you will want to cite reasons and provide proof for siding with one view point.

Theory:

Many times, a process or phenomenon has been treated mathematically, or modeled with power of prediction. You may want to apply such mathematical treatment of formulations to your own case. It becomes necessary to follow one or more of such mathematical treatments/simulations to determine some aspect of your work. If the subject is about depositing mono-and multilayers, you may want to discuss electrostatic forces, role of ions, and how shaking the substrate in water may prevent accumulation of like ions on the substrate. As a second example if you want to look at the effect of addition of hemp fibers and glue to concrete, you may have mention the effect of fibers in crack bridging. This leads to the calculation of crack driving force, crack bridging effect of fibers, etc. You may use the work of facture mechanics experts to present equations or theories related to such phenomena as crack initiation, propagation, failure analysis, fracture toughness, etc.

Practice:

Manufacturing processes evolve with time, especially during the last few decades. Many of the processes have become more efficient by going small, going electronic, and going mass produced. You may want to mention how the product or process changed with time and with the new devices that become available. All images and graphs have to be properly referenced and appropriate permissions have to be obtained from the copyright holders. If you are providing drawings, graphs, tables, pictures or any visual effects, clearly cite the reference. For academic use there are rules which are a bit different from commercial use of copyrighted materials, so you are encouraged to read the copyright laws pertaining the use of education material on the web. If you redraw a schematic or a drawing, your work should be 50% or more different from the original work and you must cite the original work. Make sure all figures and tables are numbered.

Motivation for the Current Work:

The main reason for your investigation is the partial fulfillment of the requirements of the course. You may cite this, however, you should know that any work performed in scientific world benefits from a paragraph on justification. You may follow how researchers justify the actions they have taken to achieve their goals. While citing the work of others and the progress made in the area, you may mention the shortcomings, or the improvement necessary to complement the work of others. This will be the basis or the justification for your scientific or developmental work. The justification could be based on better functionality of a product or a process in terms of productivity, environmental or human safety, or better affordability, or wider availability etc. You will want to compare and contrast the functionality of your product or process with the results of others cited here in this section. The section for such comparison will not be here, rather, it will be the discussion of results. After writing your report you may take it to the English department and get into one of the free help sessions they have for reviewing your writings. A table of visiting days and hours are available on the web. Just type NKU writing center and Google it.

Methodology

This section explains the approach you are adopting to investigate a material, a process, or an event. Make sure you include all materials, their selection criteria, their sources, the equipment used during the assessment and how you conducted your work. All preparation, execution and assessment steps must be mentioned with all details necessary to reproduce the work to get the same results. More details in this section will not hurt the report, rather it is the shortcomings in mentioning minor details that mitigate its weight and significance. This section may have a number of subsections including

Material

Your main material will be the microelectromechanical devices that you have obtained to examine. There may be materials that you will be using during the examination and evaluation of the device. Mention all chemicals, metals, ceramics, polymers, compounds, solid or liquid form along with their sources, name of the company and address (City and State). Of course this will include your microdevices. Any preparation conducted on the material (e.g. heat treatment, aging, etc.) prior to arrival. Also mention any storing conditions used to preserve the qualities of the materials before use.

Selection Criteria

If you used software such as Mike Ashby’s CES EduPack Materials Selection for Mechanical Design program, mention it here. Clearly state all of your constraints and design parameters.

Experimental Procedures

This is a step by step description of the operations associated with evaluation of a product of a process or development of a new product or process or both. Mention all equipment used both developmental and analytical. If you are characterizing a material for mechanical properties mention the load frames such as Instron. If it is the microstructure you are examining, mention the optical or electron microscopes you use. Fully describe it such that readers interested in the field can duplicate your testing. Start with the process or product, how you set up the test, what equipment or material you will use, how to acquire the data.

Assessment Methods

List all of the assessment methods you have used to evaluate a process or product. Also, include:

Performance Criteria: List the set limits you deem appropriate for the functionality of the product or process. Compare the results of your analyses with these criteria or limits to assess their functionality. The set limits can be taken from handbooks, internet, textbooks, etc. and include: standards, measures, or specifications

List ways you can improve your design, fabrication, assembly or conduct optimization and troubleshooting such that the performance criteria are exceeded. This can be replacing a low power electric motor with a high power one to run the equipment faster, strengthening structural components to allow the product to support larger loads or use better electrical components to enhance electrical functions more desirable.

Results

Report the results of your analyses using words, phrases, tables and images. Illustrations, schematics and pictures are helpful in understanding the phenomena and greatly assist the readers in grasping the essence of the work presented. All visual aids must be clearly marked for their relevance to the paper, with clear labels for important data such as size of features presented, specific objects discussed, specific dimensions desired, etc. Figures must be numbered and a list of figures must be provided. Tables are essential for presenting your data. Make sure all are properly captioned with description of the tables on top. Number all tables and provide a list of tables in the beginning. All pictures, graphs, tables and other visual aids provide in this section must be yours and not others. Graph all of your data using Excel or other graphing software. Clearly label all axes and try to fit some kind of curve that would fit you data

Discussion of Results

This is the most important section of your report. This may be one to two pages long. Here you discuss the importance of your findings, describe the behavior of the material or product or process you are evaluating. Make sure you explain the data trend their validity, experimental errors, graphs, sketches, etc. Modeling or predicting the outcomes of similar processes greatly depend on a full analysis of the results you obtained. Discuss images and their implications on real world problems. Compare the results of your evaluation with those of others. As an example make a comparison between your graphs and those obtained by other workers in the field. Clearly reference any work you cite or discuss.

Summary and Conclusions:

Here you summarize the work presented stating what you accomplished in terms of tests, analyses conducted and conclusions reached. State the conclusions clearly in 2-3 bulletized sentences such that readers can clearly see them in a glance.

· Sample reports may be consulted on the web.

· Sample references have been cited below from, a part of a book chapter on MEMS/NEMS [1-8] published by CRC (Taylor and Francis Publishing Corp).

· Please note all of the guidelines, suggestions and rules here are to help you, not to limit you.

· You are encouraged to apply creativity, innovation and critical thinking to the design and organization of your writing/work, as long as it is considered good work by others. See the instructor if you need help with any of the ideas presented here.

· Run spell and grammar check to make sure your report is free from such spelling and grammatical errors.

References: sample bibliography

In this section you will list all references you have cited in the main report. Just follow the format of the references cited below in presenting your references. If there is any DOI number, please include it.

1. Allameh, S.M., et al., On the Evolution of Surface Morphology of Polysilicon MEMS Structures during Fatigue. Materials Research Society Symposium - Proceedings, 2001. 657: p. EE231-EE236.

2. Allameh, S.M., et al., eds. Surface Topology and Fatigue in Si MEMS Structures. Mechanical Properties of Structural Films, ed. C.L. Muhlstein and S. Brown. Vol. STP 1413. 2001, American Society for Testing and Materials: West Conshohocken, PA. 3-16.

3. Allameh, S.M., et al., Surface Topography Evolution and Fatigue Fracture in Polysilicon MEMS Structures. Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, 2002.

4. Allameh, S.M., et al., Surface topography evolution and fatigue fracture in polysilicon MEMS structures. Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, 2003. 12(3): p. 313-324.

5. Allameh, S.M., C. Mercer, and S.M. Soboyejo, Microstructural Characterization of Ultrasonically Spot Welded Aluminum. J. Eng. Mat. & Tech., 2005. 127: p. 65-74.

6. Allameh, S.M., M. Sadat Hossieny, and M. Rajai. Development of Microtesting Systems: I. Tensile Testing of Metallic MEMS Structures. in ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition. 2005. Portland, OR.

7. Allameh, S.M., et al., Piezoelectric Generators for Biomedical and Dental Applications: Effects of Cyclic Loading. J. Mater. Sci: Mater Med, 2007. 18: p. 39+45.

8. Allameh, S.M., Z. Suo, and W.O. Soboyejo, Creep of Al Underlayer Determined by Channel Cracking of Topical Si3N4 Film. J. Mat. Mfg Proc., 2007. 22: p. 170-174.