Evaporation Driven Assembly of On-Chip Thermite Devices

The fabrication and demonstration of on-chip thermite devices using evaporation driven assembly (EDA) of micro- and nano-particles into on-chip trenches is demonstrated here. EDA is a simple low-cost method for fabricating particle-based devices at atmospheric pressure and at or near room temperature. EDA of thermites features the controlled delivery of material into on-chip trenches, minimal waste and hazard while making thick devices, and flexible substrate choice. On-chip thermite devices are envisioned as single-use high-energy-density heat sources with low initiation energies for low power systems. These thermite devices may be used for on-chip thermal processing, soldering, fuzing, microelectromechanical or microfluidic system actuation, and so on. EDA is demonstrated to be a suitable method for making thermite devices 10's of μm thick, 10's of μm wide, and mm's long. Burn rates up to 225 m/s and heating of devices to over 100°C have been achieved, as has the actuation of shape memory alloy cantilevers having a transition temperature of 70°C. These initial results show that significant localized heating can be achieved using these EDA fabricated thermite devices, which have the potential to be used for a wide range of applications.