Micro - Neurology Blog

Hello All

I let you know that I have created a blog for MicroElectronics, Microsystems, Neurology  (EEG-MEMS- my passion), Optical Engineering and Programming . I use to post very useful news often and I have thought that you might find it interested and useful for you and your research.

       Here is the link http://luisacevedo6.blogspot.com/

If you would like to participate, please send me an email and I will send you an invitation!

Best Regards

Luis

IMAPS-UK Making MEMS Work, BIG Ideas for Small Devices Seminar – 27th January 2011

Thanks to everyone from MISEC who came along and presented posters at the IMAPS-UK Making MEMS Work seminar. The event was rescheduled after the 'snow chaos' affected many roads and airports making it unsafe to travel to the event. A presentation about the new Smart Microsystems flagship project with IeMRC, Heriot Watt University and the University of Edinburgh was given by Jon Terry on Marc's behalf (who was in China at the time) and was very well received.

There were many interesting talks given mostly by industrial speakers concerning the challenges faced by industry when trying to make MEMS work both from technical and business perspectives. The presentations covered topics from design and fabrication to packaging and test. The keynote speaker from Yole Developpement, Eric Mounier, finished the day with a very interesting presentation about MEMS manufacturing and packaging trends. He concluded that new approaches to manufacturing and packaging must result in smaller, low cost, high performance devices, so it seems we have our work cut-out for us!

Thanks to John Carr from Renishaw and Matt Brown from Inseto for organising the event on behalf of IMAPS-UK and to Rosanne Holburn and the team at iSLI for being such fantasic hosts. The event was a great success and we hope to offer more one day seminars in the future. The next IMAPS-UK and IMAPS Europe event is EMPC in September 2011, abstract deadline 8th Feb:

http://uk.imapseurope.org/index.php/event-calender/details/6-EMPC-2001

Visit ot Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics

"David Watson and I spent two weeks at the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics. Changchun is the automobile town of China, where large car manufacturers such as Wolkswagen, Audi etc.. have established factories. It is also the birthplace of the Chinese laser.

As one of the 40 Senior Visiting Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences tihs year, I was invited to give a series of lectures about commercialisation of research., MEMS hermeticity, MOEMS packaging and the basic understanding of an accelerometer for automative applications.

David and I were treated very well with lunches and dinners every day in a restaurant. The accomodation was superb and our hosts were extremely nice to us. With a research income of around £200M, the Insitute is a formidable force to reckon with and a good partner for future collaborations.

One note of advice, do not visit the Institute in Janaury/February, with -20 degrees Celsius outside, it was difficult to enjoy the sights in town :)"

Greetings from Changchun

Marc Desmulliez and David Watson visiting Chanchun, China

Marc and I are now safely back from braving temperatures of -25C, pretty chilly but not too bad with a decent pair of thermals, which have the added advantage of being exceptionally stylish. We were guests of Weixing Yu at the Changchun Institute of Optics,Fine Mechanies and Physics (or CIOMP, not a bad acronym but I think MISEC wins this battle of abbreviations...)
While there, Marc gave a few lectures about who MISEC are, what we do and why the iPhone is rubbish. It went down pretty well though as he's been invited back to present at a conference in June. I'm sure they'd appreciate other speaker submissions too so if you know anyone who uses lasers or optics in their work then get submitting, can't think of a single person at the moment but I've heard rumours of equipment such as lasers and UV-liga machines in the department so they must be used by someone...
While Marc was sleeping in his hotel room between lectures, I was slaving away trying to apply the direct writing process I'm working on to the equipment they have there. It's a cunning reworking of an AFM scanning probe tip and software that uses optical fibres to deliver a laser beam to the surface at (hopefully) sub micron linewidths. The advantage of this is that the optic can deliver light from less than 2µm above the substrate. It can probably get closer but I was being cautious.


I wasn't entirely successful in my experiments but did discover alternative chemical for use in my process which are potentially advantageous. If anyone else can think of a use for using an AFM tip to deliver light, then I'm sure they'd be interested too. Feel free to come and ask me questions about it for a bit more info.
To sign off, I leave you with a nugget of fascinating information:
Did you know that the "B" in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stands for 'Benoit B. Mandelbrot'?