Advancements in mems and nems from bio-tribological perspective

Authors: Molino, Jay; Araúz, Biseth; Nieto, Clarissa; Reginensi, Diego; Tristan, Svetlana de

Description: Biotribology is a field dedicated to the understanding of many sliding and frictional interfaces in living tissue. The field gained popularity in the 1990´s due to miniaturization of electromechanical components which prompted issues related to grinding and wear at smaller scales. This is, since MEMs and NEMS have gained control over medication, biotechnology, optics, hardware, and avionics and, due to the scale, continuum mechanics cannot accurately describe such nanoscale phenomena. MEMs and NEMS are increasingly used in industrial and defense applications. In chemistry these devices allow smaller reagent volumes and faster reaction times, and the simultaneous execution of multiple types of analyses. In biotechnology, these are used to examine DNA or proteins in order to detect ailments or find new medications. They are also known as DNA arrays, and they're capable of identifying thousands of genes at once. In the pharmaceutical industry, they serve as drug delivery systems. Indeed there are several applications for such kind of devices and in order to increase the number of fields of application, it is necessary to overcome several tribological challenges. Thus, this review focuses on tribology in Bio MEMS/NEMS, its applications, advancements and challenges since device miniaturization is one of the frontier technologies of the 21st century