AVS 51st International Symposium
    MEMS and NEMS Monday Sessions
       Session MN-MoM

Paper MN-MoM3
Nanotribological Characterization of Perfluoropolymer Thin Films for BioMEMS Applications

Monday, November 15, 2004, 9:00 am, Room 213C

Session: Processing and Characterization for MEMS and NEMS
Presenter: K. Lee, The Ohio State University
Authors: K. Lee, The Ohio State University
B. Bhushan, The Ohio State University
D. Hansford, The Ohio State University
Correspondent: Click to Email
The undesired adhesion of micro-organisms and biomolecules to surfaces and biofilm development called biofouling may cause detrimental effects to the performance of most biomedical microelectromechanical system (BioMEMS) devices. A vapor phase deposition technique to modify surfaces with perfluoropolymer and silane thin films was developed to reduce or prevent protein or cell interactions, critical for their use. The surface properties of these devices and therefore the surface modifications become increasingly important for BioMEMS applications as the channel dimensions decrease within these systems. Compared to dip coating or spin coating, the vapor phase deposition is more effective for smaller channels, especially at the nanoscale. Since nanotribological behaviors such as surface topography, adhesive and frictional properties and mechanical stability of these films play a very important role in forming uniform, conformal and ultra thin films on the surface and reducing protein or cell interactions, coating effects of these films were characterized extensively using an atomic force microscopy in this study.