Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

The purpose of this Research Tool and Instruments (RTI) grant proposal is to purchase a mask aligner system for lithography applications in the field of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), millimeter-wave, terahertz and optoelectronics. The mask aligner is a key processing tool in any micro-fabrication facility. It will be located in a clean room facility at the University of Waterloo that is dedicated to the fabrication of MEMS and gold-based thin film devices. It will benefit more than 20 faculty members and 50 graduate students at the University of Waterloo who currently use this clean room facility. Some of their current research projects that are relevant to the present proposal are: 1) radio frequency (RF) MEMS, 2) chip scale scanning probe microscopes, 3) micro-fabrication and packaging 4) fabrication of neural micro-electrodes,5) MEMS/NEMS sensors 6) integrated miniature antenna array systems 7) millimeter-wave integrated receiver systems, 8) terahertz biosensors, 9) MEMS optical scanners, 10) micro-mirror devices for genetic microarray reading and tissue imaging. All the above mentioned research projects will directly benefit from the requested tool. Most of these projects are supported by industry. A large number of companies in Canada that are involved in wireless communication, automotive and biomedical applications will also benefit from the requested RTI tool.