Processing Nanostructured Sensors Using Microfabrication Techniques

Nanostructured sensors have uses in safety, environmental monitoring, fire detection, and security.

Standard microfabrication techniques can be implemented and scaled to help assemble nanoscale microsensors. Currently nanostructures are often deposited onto materials primarily by adding them to a solution, then applying the solution in a thin film. This results in random placement of the nanostructures with no controlled order, and no way to accurately reproduce the placement. This method changes the means by which microsensors with nanostructures are fabricated. The fundamental advantage to this approach is that it enables standard microfabrication techniques to be applied in the repeated manufacture of nanostructured sensors on a microplatform.