Documents / Report
This Defense Intelligence Agency reference document, dated 31 March 2010 (DIA-08-1003-020), was one of a series of advanced technology reports produced in FY 2009 under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) program. It surveys biosensors and BioMEMS, covering brain-implanted neuroelectrodes, drug-delivery pumps, implantable glucose sensors, brain-machine interfaces, retinal prostheses, microfluidic lab chips, NASA cell culture systems, and microcantilever sensors. It concludes that the field is expanding rapidly toward nanomechanical systems.
UNCLASSIFIED/ ,sr&R: &FFHiIAL Wili &Hbl;f What is BioMEMS? BioMEMS stands for biomedical micro-~lectro-mechanical ~ystems. It is a name applied to biological and medical devices that are created using advanced fabrication processes that allow the devices to be very small relative to comparable devices produced by traditional techniques. BioMEMS devices can also exploit the microscale to provide new functions that are not practical or possible in large-scale devices. The name applies to an exceptionally wide variety of engineered devices that derive from electrical, mechanical, chemical, and molecular engineering. The name distinguishes these from nanoMEMS which are submicron in scale such as carbon nanotube structures. Recently BioMEMS has become something of a misnomer as many of the latest technologies are being designed and developed based on nanoscale technologies which are many times smaller than microscale technologies. While current devices are manufactured mostly on the microscale, many of the functioning parts and the materials they operate on are at the nanoscale level. NanoMEMS for biomedical applications are mostly carbon-based materials that have emerged as prime materials because of their favorable mechanical and electrical properties. Carbon-based nanostructures such as graphene exhibit a high Young's modulus (stiffness), high strength, low density, low friction and large surface area. The low friction of a carbon nanotube allows production of practically frictionless bearings and has thus been a huge motivation towards applications such as nanomotors. Carbon nanostructures are much stronger than steel, which allows carbon-based materials to meet high-stress demands in biomedical applications such as weight-bearing prosthetics (like hip-joint or bone replacements), where other materials would fail. The field of BioMEMS encompasses micro devices that are often but not exclusively made by the same photolithographic techniques used to make computer chips. Their applications include neuroprosthetics, sensors and actuators, and microchemistry systems. A microchemistry system, often called a lab on a chip, can analyze chemical properties of a very small quantity of material such as a tiny blood sample. Advanced systems can perform several tests on the sample at one time. There are also drug-delivery systems, miniature hearing aids, artificial retinas, DNA analysis systems, cancer diagnostics, and an amazing variety of devices which support the function of the human body. Figure 1 shows some devices that were developed by the faculty of Biomedical Engineering at Arizona State University. 1 UNCLASSIFIED/ /1"91\ 8ffl81i'\li Wilii 0•11.¥
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 45 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.