Integrated MEMS Chemical/Biosensor Analyzer

A need exists to develop a fully integrated monolithic microsystem to perform chemical and bloassays in a reliable, accurate and repeatable, even continuous way. Durability of the device is of paramount importance. We propose in Phase I to develop a MEMS microfluidic device that can be fully integrated with a variety of microsensors in Phase II. We will exploit the elegance of a simple, easy to fabricate microvalve which in a counter-flow pair design will give a ruggeded micropump with minimal moving parts. A novel microfluidic MEMS mixing device will be integrated on silicon with these micropumps, micro-channels and microsensor cells to give the desired Integrated MEMS Device. A unique minaturized fluidics system, developed for another high priority DoD project will be used to test the performance of the microvalves, micropumps, micromixer and integrated MEMS with flows in the low microliter sector range. Phase I of this project is viewed by Patton Technology as the first step toward the development of advanced reliable MEMS systems which have minimal moving parts and fully integrated components. Commercial applications exist for DoD, environmental and biomedical applications.