People

Dr. Don DeVoe, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland

Dr. DeVoe is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UMD. He also is the faculty director of the Maryland Microfluidics Laboratory (MML). Research at the MML is focused on the development of advanced micro and nanofluidic technologies enabling effective biomolecular analysis. Major research thrusts include tools for high throughput proteomics, interfaces coupling microfluidics to mass spectrometry, integrated ion channel platforms, and polymer nanofluidics. The Maryland MEMS Lab is affiliated with the Center for Micro Engineering (CEMIE), the Center for Nano Manufacturing and Metrology (CNMM), and the Maryland Center for Integrated Nano Science and Engineering (M-CINSE).

Nanotech Briefs: What are MEMS?

Dr. Don DeVoe: Obviously, there are many definitions floating around out there and the terminology does get muddled, especially when you throw nanotechnology into the mix; however, I believe that most people would probably agree that MEMS is really the application of integrated circuit technology and related technology, whether silicon-based or non-silicon-based, that has emerged from that overall industry for the fabrication of micro- and nano-scale features that combine mechanically and other physical domains in a single system.

NB: What are some of the existing commercial applications for MEMS

Dr. DeVoe: In terms of the overall MEMS market, at least as of several years ago, things like pressure sensors were still the bulk of the market, or if you wanted to include technologies like ink-jet printer heads, they made up the lions share of the commercial marketplace. It’s pretty clear that, even in the past couple of years, a lot of new opportunities have been opening up; overall, I would say that the market is just much more friendlier towards MEMS now. You see a lot of insertion in areas that even five years ago there was no too much going on in the commercial realm.

One way to break the whole community down is to do it in terms of application. There are biological applications versus automotive applications versus military applications. Then, instead of thinking of the larger applications, one could think of the sub-domains within those applications, which also cross between different application areas like communication systems where you’re talking about things like RF switches, RF filters, optical communications, and data storage. I think you also could look at the biological side of the world. One can think about sub-domains such as MEMS application to high-throughput screening, drug discovery, biomarker discovery, and diagnostics.

NB: What are some of the challenges faced by MEMS developers?

Dr. DeVoe: Unlike integrated circuits, whether you’re talking about CMOS or other circuit technologies, where there is a lot of commonality in terms of tool sets used and design tools that can be applied, there is a lot that ties that industry together. When you look at the MEMS industry, I think it is a very different story. When you look at the range of tools it is vastly broader and more disperse than what you see in the integrated circuit industry, which is a major challenge in its own right.

On the other side of things is design. Obviously, a lot of companies and a lot of academic research groups have put a lot of effort into software tools for MEMS design. I think that this is all well and good, except that MEMS is just a reflection of the larger mechanical world. How does one make a design tool that applies to the entire field of engineering? My guess is that a lot of people answering this question would say that one of the biggest challenges is having appropriate design tools. I would agree with this in principal, however I disagree that it’s reasonable to expect a “MEMS design software package” to solve all the problems that the MEMS community faces in terms of device design.

NB: What are the overarching goals of the industry? Is it simply about making devices smaller?

Dr. DeVoe: If you look at the history of the MEMS community, I believe that early on there was a trend toward “widgetism,” just making the next cool widget. I think that this got old rather quickly after a couple of pretty pictures appeared on the cover of Scientific American. Then the trend seemed to move toward miniaturization or for interesting applications, but with a focus on things like portability. I think that researchers realized after a while that there are only so many things that make sense to try to make portable. Then the focus really started to diverge into these very specific areas where MEMS technology can contribute to improving the performance of a particular system or subsystem.

My present focus has been in the microfluidics area, so I can speak intelligently about that sub-specialty. In the case of microfluidics, one of the great benefits is not just making things smaller, because who really cares if you have benchtop or a handheld instrument as long as you get the job done (except perhaps for some applications that involve remote detection). Generally, making something small does not really buy you anything unless the physics at that scale enable you to do something you could not do with traditional instrumentation. Using the example of microfluidics, it enables you to do things like maintaining very high analytic concentration within the microfluidic system. It also allows you to combine multiple functionality within a single microfluidic chip, which otherwise would be extremely costly to do in a traditional capillary-based technology. By maintaining these very high analytic concentrations, detection limits can be lowered. So better, more comprehensive detection can be enabled using this kind of technology.

For more information, contact Dr. DeVoe at ddev@eng.umd.edu. Visit his Web site at www.enme.umd.edu/facstaff/faculty/assistant/devoe.html.