Abstract
The development of micro and nano electromechanical systems and achievement of higher performances with increased quality and life time is confronted to searching and mastering of material with superior properties and quality. Those can affect many aspects of the MEMS, NEMS and MOMS design including geometric tolerances and reproducibility of many specific solid-state structures and properties. Among those: Mechanical, adhesion, thermal and chemical stability, electrical and heat conductance, optical, optoelectronic and semiconducting properties, porosity, bulk and surface properties. They can be affected by different kinds of phase transformations and degrading, which greatly depends on the conditions of use and the way the materials have been selected, elaborated, modified and assembled. Distribution of these properties cover several orders of magnitude and depend on the design, actually achieved structure, type and number of defects. It is then essential to be well aware about all these, and to distinguish and characterize all features that are able to affect the results. For this achievement, we point out and discuss the necessity to take into account several recently revisited fundamentals on carbon atomic rearrangement and revised carbon Raman spectroscopy characterizing in addition to several other aspects we will briefly describe. Correctly selected and implemented, these carbon materials can then open new routes for many new and more performing microsystems including improved energy generation, storage and conversion, 2D superconductivity, light switches, light pipes and quantum devices and with new improved sensor and mechanical functions and biomedical applications.
Highlights
Micro, nano electromechanical and optomechanical systems are still often confronted to the lack of quality and longer life time and to the search of extended higher performances [1], huge progress has been recently achieved in MEMS and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) technology in using more performing carbon-based materials, which are presenting a large panel of various superior properties concerning their mechanical properties, such as young modulus, Poisson’s ratio, fracture strength of nanocrystalline diamond for instance [2], tribological, electric, semicon, piezoelectric, heat conducting and optical/optoelectrical properties [3,4], diamond micro and nano resonators [5,6], piezo-resistivity obtained with carbon nanotubes [7], diamond-like carbon MEMS sensors [8] and many more which are making use of functionalized graphenic and related materials [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20]
Improved performances achieved with several of their specific properties, are well illustrated with the development of carbon-based material field emissions beginning with a-C:H, improving with doped diamond and ta-C and achieving much more performing results with carbon nanotubes (CNTs), which are used for atomic force, scanning tunneling (STM) and magnetic force microscopy [140,141,142,143,144,145]
Changes to electronic and mechanical attributes of carbon-based materials must fully be explored before their implementation, especially because of high surface area which can react with environments
Summary
Micro, nano electromechanical and optomechanical systems are still often confronted to the lack of quality and longer life time and to the search of extended higher performances [1], huge progress has been recently achieved in MEMS and NEMS technology in using more performing carbon-based materials, which are presenting a large panel of various superior properties concerning their mechanical properties, such as young modulus, Poisson’s ratio, fracture strength of nanocrystalline diamond for instance [2], tribological, electric, semicon, piezoelectric, heat conducting and optical/optoelectrical properties [3,4], diamond micro and nano resonators [5,6], piezo-resistivity obtained with carbon nanotubes [7], diamond-like carbon MEMS sensors [8] and many more which are making use of functionalized graphenic and related materials [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20]. In addition to several other revisited subjects, we briefly recall concerning diamond-like carbon coatings [27], energy storage and conversion using different kinds of carbon-based materials [28], superconductivity This appears all the more important to be achieved, considering those, can open new routes for improved microsystems and 2D devices concerning mechanical functions, light switches, light pipes and quantum calculation devices [30]
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