Microelectromechanical pump utilizing porous silicon
| DWPI Title: Microelectromechanical pump e.g. two-stage microelectromechanical pump, for pumping air in gas-phase microelectromechanical chemical analysis system, has silicon substrate including channel that transports gas from chamber to surface |
| Abstract: A microelectromechanical (MEM) pump is disclosed which includes a porous silicon region sandwiched between an inlet chamber and an outlet chamber. The porous silicon region is formed in a silicon substrate and contains a number of pores extending between the inlet and outlet chambers, with each pore having a cross-section dimension about equal to or smaller than a mean free path of a gas being pumped. A thermal gradient is provided along the length of each pore by a heat source which can be an electrical resistance heater or an integrated circuit (IC). A channel can be formed through the silicon substrate so that inlet and outlet ports can be formed on the same side of the substrate, or so that multiple MEM pumps can be connected in series to form a multi-stage MEM pump. The MEM pump has applications for use in gas-phase MEM chemical analysis systems, and can also be used for passive cooling of ICs. |
| Use: Microelectromechanical (MEM) pump e.g. multi-stage MEM pump such as two-stage MEM pump, for pumping a gas i.e. air, in a MEM chemical analysis system i.e. gas-phase MEM chemical analysis system. Can also be used for passive cooling of an integrated circuit (IC). |
| Advantage: The pump uses the porous silicon region formed in the silicon substrate in a better manner, where porous silicon can be formed with a pore size predetermined to be in a range of about 10nm to 10micron. The pump can be easily integrated with multiple chemical preconcentrators, gas chromatographs and detectors in a better manner. The pump can be formed on a common substrate by connecting a series of pumps together among which each pump is tailored to operate in a different gas pressure regime. |
| Novelty: The pump (10) has a silicon substrate (18) including a porous silicon region that has a set of pores (16) perpendicularly oriented to two major surfaces of substrate. Each pore has a cross-section dimension e.g. width, equal to or smaller than a mean free path length of gas i.e. air, to pump the gas from an inlet chamber (20) to an outlet chamber (22) in response to thermal gradient along a pore length by a heat source e.g. electrical resistance heater (28). The substrate has a channel (32) transporting the gas from the outlet chamber located on one of the surfaces to another surface. |
| Filed: 4/25/2007 |
| Application Number: US2007739716A |
| Tech ID: SD 10038.0 |
| This invention was made with Government support under Contract No. DE-NA0003525 awarded by the United States Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. The Government has certain rights in the invention. |
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