MRI Award Granted to Research Team

ISR researchers have won a $239,405 NSF Major Research Instrumentation Award (MRI) to purchase an aligner/bonder for MEMS and Microsystems research. This state-of-the-art MEMS microfabrication equipment patterns features in photosensitive polymeric materials, aligns multi-stack silicon (and other materials like glass) wafers with micron scale accuracy and bonds these wafers permanently to form structures and devices of different shapes and forms. This equipment will complement the department's deep reactive ion etcher (DRIE), previously awarded under a Navy DURIP grant.

Assistant Professor Reza Ghodssi (ECE/ISR) is the Principal Investigator; co-PIs are: Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professors Elisabeth Smela and Don DeVoe, and Professor John Melngailis (ECE/IREAP).

The award, "MRI: Acquisition of an Aligner and Bonder Instrument for Research," is effective September 1 , 2001 and expires August 31, 2002.

As a condition of this award, the University of Maryland will provide $147,000 cost sharing.

NSF's Major Research Instrumentation Program (MRI) is designed to increase access to scientific and engineering equipment for research and research training in academic institutions. It seeks to improve the quality and expand the scope of research and research training in science and engineering, and to foster the integration of research and education by providing instrumentation for research-intensive learning environments.

The MRI Program assists in the acquisition or development of major research instrumentation by U.S. institutions that is, in general, too costly for support through other NSF programs. The maintenance and technical support associated with these instruments are also supported. Proposals may be for a single instrument, a large system of instruments, or multiple instruments that share a common or specific research focus.

Published August 13, 2001