MEMS, MOEMS, Nano, and Bionanotechnologies - Applied Optics Fundamentals and Device Applications - page 322

of MEMS, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. Perhaps, MOEMS devices
interacting with biological systems will manipulate nanoparticles in appli-
cations for drug delivery, gene therapy, and commercial labs on a chip.
MOEMS advanced rapidly in part due to the telecommunication market's
demand for devices such as add-drop mulitplexers, optical cross connect
switches, variable optical attenuators, modulators, dense wavelength divi-
sion multiplexing, wavelength converters, dynamic gain equalizing filters,
tunable filters, and advanced packaging technologies. More than 50 start-up
ventures in the late 1990s complemented the efforts of the large telecommu-
nication manufacturers in the acceleration of such market applications.
Significant applications are emerging in the related field of biomimetics,
involving biologically inspired synthetic materials. These point to the con-
struction of genetic networks from and within cells, along with intelligent
implantable sensors. Microfluidic MEMS constructs will provide processing
of antibodies, peptides, metabolic markers, and monitors. DNA may even
provide the backbone for computer logic chips. Biosensors mimicking mam-
malian physiological behavior, fabricated from completely synthetic abiotic
materials, can be programmed to sense, respond, and adapt to requirements
of living systems, along with providing the basis for a range of chemical and
biological sensing systems [4].
With the emergence of multidisciplinary fields such as bioinformatics,
mathematical biology, computational biological modeling, biophysics, etc.,
we should continue to see the cataloging and relational systems approach
to biology and the sciences as part of the exponential “Kurzweilian”
growth characteristic of technological progress. Crystal growth techniques
described in earlier chapters for the III-V GaAs semiconductor material
system are analogous in many respects to growth techniques used to nucle-
ate the precipitation of protein crystalline structure from aqueous solution.
Quoting D. A. LaVan and R. Langer, MIT, from the NSF Symposium in 2001:
While some may dream of nanorobots circulating in the blood, the
immediate applications in medicine will occur at the interfaces among…
nanotechnology, micro-electronics, microelectromechanical systems
(MEMS) and microopticalelectro-mechanical systems (MOEMS)…The
bounty will not be realized until those trained in these new paradigms
begin to ….address basic medical and scientific questions.
7.2 MEMSandNanotechnology*
7.2.1 Introduction
The section provides a discussion of MEMS and nanotechnology.
* Courtesy of Dr. Michael Huff of the MEMS and Nanotechnology Exchange (see http://mems-
exchange.org) at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives [5].