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vi Preface

of microbes and plant and animal cells. Smaller things were manmade in the latter half of the 20th cen-
tury. The transistor in today’s integrated circuits has a size of 0.18 micron in production and approaches
10 nanometers in research laboratories.
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) refer to devices that have characteristic length of less than
1 mm but more than 1 micron, that combine electrical and mechanical components, and that are fabri-
cated using integrated circuit batch-processing technologies. Current manufacturing techniques for
MEMS include surface silicon micromachining; bulk silicon micromachining; lithography, electro-
deposition, and plastic molding; and electrodischarge machining. The multidisciplinary field has wit-
nessed explosive growth during the last decade and the technology is progressing at a rate that far exceeds
that of our understanding of the physics involved. Electrostatic, magnetic, electromagnetic, pneumatic
and thermal actuators, motors, valves, gears, cantilevers, diaphragms, and tweezers of less than 100
micron size have been fabricated. These have been used as sensors for pressure, temperature, mass flow,
velocity, sound and chemical composition, as actuators for linear and angular motions, and as simple
components for complex systems such as robots, lab-on-a-chip, micro heat engines and micro heat
pumps. The lab-on-a-chip in particular is promising to automate biology and chemistry to the same
extent the integrated circuit has allowed large-scale automation of computation. Global funding for
micro- and nanotechnology research and development quintupled from $432 million in 1997 to $2.2 bil-
lion in 2002. In 2004, the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative had a budget of close to $1 billion, and
the worldwide investment in nanotechnology exceeded $3.5 billion. In 10 to 15 years, it is estimated that
micro- and nanotechnology markets will represent $340 billion per year in materials, $300 billion per
year in electronics, and $180 billion per year in pharmaceuticals.
The three-book MEMS set covers several aspects of microelectromechanical systems, or more broadly,
the art and science of electromechanical miniaturization. MEMS design, fabrication, and application as
well as the physical modeling of their materials, transport phenomena, and operations are all discussed.
Chapters on the electrical, structural, fluidic, transport and control aspects of MEMS are included in the
books. Other chapters cover existing and potential applications of microdevices in a variety of fields,
including instrumentation and distributed control. Up-to-date new chapters in the areas of microscale
hydrodynamics, lattice Boltzmann simulations, polymeric-based sensors and actuators, diagnostic tools,
microactuators, nonlinear electrokinetic devices, and molecular self-assembly are included in the three
books constituting the second edition of The MEMS Handbook. The 16 chapters in MEMS: Introduction
and Fundamentals provide background and physical considerations, the 14 chapters in MEMS: Design
and Fabrication discuss the design and fabrication of microdevices, and the 15 chapters in MEMS:
Applications review some of the applications of micro-sensors and microactuators.
There are a total of 45 chapters written by the world’s foremost authorities in this multidisciplinary
subject. The 71 contributing authors come from Canada, China (Hong Kong), India, Israel, Italy, Korea,
Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States, and are affiliated with academia, government, and industry.
Without compromising rigorousness, the present text is designed for maximum readability by a broad
audience having engineering or science background. As expected when several authors are involved, and
despite the editor’s best effort, the chapters of each book vary in length, depth, breadth, and writing style.
These books should be useful as references to scientists and engineers already experienced in the field or
as primers to researchers and graduate students just getting started in the art and science of electro-
mechanical miniaturization. The Editor-in-Chief is very grateful to all the contributing authors for their
dedication to this endeavor and selfless, generous giving of their time with no material reward other than
the knowledge that their hard work may one day make the difference in someone else’s life. The
talent, enthusiasm, and indefatigability of Taylor & Francis Group’s Cindy Renee Carelli (acquisition
editor), Jessica Vakili (production coordinator), N. S. Pandian and the rest of the editorial team at
Macmillan India Limited, Mimi Williams and Tao Woolfe (project editors) were highly contagious and
percolated throughout the entire endeavor.

Mohamed Gad-el-Hak

© 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC