New materials and new processes for MEMS applications

The field of 'non-silicon MEMS' is today rapidly expanding. The reasons are numerous: silicon has a limited functionality in many MEMS applications; the toolbox for micromachining of non-silicon materials is steadily growing in size and versatility; the price level of a variety of other advanced materials for MEMS has become more competitive etc. This development is here illustrated by a number of examples from a wide variety of materials classes, methods for synthesis and microprocessing, and fields of application. Among these examples are high-aspect ratio processing of different materials by ion track technology (MITE) and deep ion projection lithography (DIPL); laser microprocessing and free-space 3D laser writing; high-precision 3D diamond replicas from microstructured silicon masters; and microreplication in polymeric materials for microoptics and microsystems technology.