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JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
A Thermal Ink-Jet Printer Head Prototype With
Full Carbon Based Microbubble Generator
Yunhong Xiang, Lvhui Jiang, Yu Zhu, Changsheng Chen, Yangyang Chen, and Wenli Zhou
Abstract This paper presents the development of a novel
thermal ink-jet printer head prototype using full carbon-
based microbubble generators with carbon nanotubes as
heating elements and graphene as electrodes. Meanwhile, each
microbubble generator is equipped with a carbon nanotube
sensor to real-timely probe the temperature of its surrounding
micro-environment. With an array of microbubble generators
and sensors fabricated on quartz glass, as well as a microfluidic
structure constructed by the micromachined silicon, the printer
head prototype is formed by an anodic silicon-glass bonding
process with several scattered graphene film flakes as medium.
Droplet ejection with volume as tiny as 0.03 pl corresponding
to a very high spatial resolution of >2000 dpi driven by two
microbubble valves is demonstrated by the printing unit in the
prototype. Increasing the input power cannot only speed up the
bubble nucleation and growth, but also improve the utilizing
efficiency of electric heating energy. The experimental detected
temperature variation in the printing unit reveals its nonlinear
heat convection property by comparison with the theoretical
calculation by finite-element analysis. [2017-0048]
Index Terms Thermal ink-jet printing, carbon nanotubes-
graphene hybrid structure, MEMS, microbubble generator, full
carbon-based device.
I. I NTRODUCTION
C ARBON nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene are two most
promising nanoelectronic materials in post-silicon era
due to their unique and excellent electrical, optical, thermal,
mechanical properties [1][5]. So far, CNT has been broadly
investigated in many fields such as field effect transistor,
sensor, field emitter, and energy storage. In general, there
exists a Schottky barrier at normal metal-carbon nanotube
contacts [6], [7], which affects the corresponding device
performances. At present, graphene field effect transistor due
to its low On/Off ratio has not yet been generally adopted as
the circuit building block because that the intrinsic graphene
is zero-bandgap and it is difficult to wide open. Nevertheless,
graphene is still much concerned as an unprecedented
excellent electrode material. Specifically, its lattice has
similar chemical bonding to CNT, making it an ideal electrode
material for CNT devices connection. The Schottky barrier of
CNT-graphene, e.g., 0.09eV for CNT(8,0), is much lower than
Manuscript received March 4, 2017; revised April 22, 2017; accepted
May 6, 2017. This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grant 61274115. Subject Editor J. Miao.
(Corresponding Author: Wenli Zhou.)
The authors are with School of Optical and Electronic Information,
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
(e-mail: wlzhou@hust.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JMEMS.2017.2703131
1057-7157 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
CNT-metal, e.g., 0.4eV for CNT(8,0)-Pd [8]. Furthermore,
as their phonon spectra are similar due to sp2 bond,
the CNT-graphene junction has very low interface thermal
resistance [9].
The thermal conductivity of CNT is very high and
anisotropic, i.e., the tubular is three orders bigger than across
the axis [10], [11]. The one-dimensional tubular structure of
CNTs restricts their heat conduction and it is dominated in
the tubular direction. Its joule heating density can be thus
very high and localized when working as a heating element.
Therefore, we proposed and fabricated a low power and high
resolution multiwalled CNT based microbubble generator with
gold electrode [12], [13], and built a printer head structure with
silicon microfluidic structure micromachined by wet etching
method [14].
Graphene has the highest thermal conductivity among
the existing known materials which is also anisotropic,
the in-plane is several hundreds times bigger than the out-of-
plane [15]. In this paper, we use graphene to replace the metal
electrodes of our previous CNTs based microbubble generator.
Combing their excellent electrical and thermal contact,
the joule heating of CNTs-graphene structure is theoretically
confined inside with the heat flow limited in tubular and in-
plane, high utilizing efficiency of electric heating energy can
be expected. Meanwhile, the chemical inertness and stability
of full carbon material broadens the application fields of this
kind of mcirobubble generator without specific circumstance
restriction, e.g., bio-MEMS and micro fluidic chips.
Through Ab initio study of the electronic transport
properties of the CNT-graphene contact by a fully
nonequilibrium Greens functions method combined with the
density functional theory, we found that electron transmission
coefficients at high energy (e.g., 1eV) has little dependence
on the detail of contact junction such as armchair or zigzag
edge, edge passivated by hydrogen or not, overlap dimension,
etc., suggesting that the CNT-graphene contact can be used
at relatively high bias (i.e., 1V) without precise control
of the edge condition [16]. This gives a broad margin to
the corresponding fabrication to construct CNTs-graphene
hybrid structure. Therefore, in this paper, we employ CNTs-
graphene hybrid structure based microbubble generator in
thermal printer head, providing an insight into the formation
and integration of full-carbon nano structure for MEMS
application to benefit from the advancement of carbon
electronics. Besides, CNT is employed as a temperature
sensing element and located nearby the microbubble generator
to real-timely monitor the microchamber environment of each
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2 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Fig. 1. (a) Schematic drawing of the thermal ink-jet printer head
(crosssectional view); (b) partial layout design of the printer head.
printing unit. Experimental evidences of convection nature
in the surrounding can be collected for precise control of
microbubble generation. So far, our effort is focused on the
fabrication and proof-of-concept performance characterization
of the novel printer head prototype.
II. S TRUCTURE AND FABRICATION OF P RINTER H EAD
A. Structure
The structure of our thermal ink-jet printer head is schemati-
cally drawn in Fig. 1 [14]. There are two parallel microbubble
generators in the microchamber of each printing unit, with
a narrow channel called chamber neck to link microchamber
and main channel. When certain voltages are applied to the
microbubble generators, a highly localized bubble nucleation
and growth will be generated at each center. The expanding
bubble near the chamber neck functions as a valve to isolate
the liquid supply from the main channel. When these two
growing bubbles are big enough and the balance between the
surface tension and liquid pressure at the nozzle is broken,
a droplet will be ejected through the nozzle. Then the voltage
supply can be stopped to make the bubble collapse and the ink
refill the microchamber. Afterwards, another cycle of bubble
generation and droplet ejection can be implemented.
The layout and structures of the microbubble generator
and temperature sensor are depicted in Fig. 1(b) and Fig. 2.
Considering that the sensor is usually driven by a constant
Fig. 2. Schematic drawing of the micro-bubble generator (a) and temperature
sensor (b).
current and the experimental tested temperature coefficient of
resistance of the carbon nanotubes and graphene hybrid struc-
ture is positive (see Fig. 3(a)), we still use Pt/Ti electrode in the
sensor so as to lower its power consumption and disturbance to
the surrounding environment, although the temperature sensor
can be also constructed by the CNTs-graphene hybrid structure
like the microbubble generator.
B. Fabrication
The array of the microbubble generators and sensors are
fabricated on the top-cover quartz glass substrate. The process
starts with the sputtering and patterning of Pt/Ti (100/20 nm)
film, as the device electrodes of the temperature sensors and
peripheral electrodes for both microbubble generators and
sensors. A very few (1-2) layered graphene film is grown on
copper foil by low pressure chemical vapor deposition (CVD)
method [17]. It is transferred to glass substrate by a
well-known wet transfer technology using spin-coating of
polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and patterned by oxygen
reactive ion etching (O2 /50sccm, 80W/60s). Afterwards, mul-
tiwalled CNTs (diameter 10 30 nm, length 4 10m) are
aligned between graphene electrodes of microbubble genera-
tors and Pt/Ti electrodes of sensors concurrently using dielec-
trophoretic (DEP) technique (see a SEM picture in Fig. 3(b)).
A silicon dioxide layer (200 nm) is then sputtered on the
contacts between graphene electrodes and CNTs to fix their
connection. It also helps confine the joule heating in the
microbubble generator and protects the metal electrode from
corrosion.
The microfluidic structures are fabricated on a piece of
double side polished silicon wafer. ICP technique is used
to etch silicon with a sputtered and wet etched Cr film as
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XIANG et al.: THERMAL INK-JET PRINTER HEAD PROTOTYPE WITH FULL CARBON BASED MICROBUBBLE GENERATOR
Fig. 3. (a) DC resistances of microbubble generator and temperature sensor
versus temperature. (b) A SEM picture of carbon nanotubes deposited between
the graphene electrodes by DEP technique.
mask, deeper trench thicker Cr. The geometric structures with
the same depth are formed at one ICP step. We developed a
specific process for the shallow etching after a deep etching
to obtain the intact edge profile along the trench, i.e., filling
the deep trench with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to planar
the surface after the Cr mask layer deposition.
In detail, as shown in Fig. 4(a), the micromaching of silicon
starts with the ICP etching of the nozzle and main channel
(95m depth, step (1)-(2)); Then the planarization process
is inserted before both ICP steps to form the microchamber
(25m depth, step (3)) and the chamber neck (12m
depth, step (4)-(5)) in sequence; It should be noted that the
PDMS is removed by oxygen reactive ion etching after each
ICP step. Afterwards, a very deep well (360m depth,
step (6)) on the backside of silicon is formed by the last
ICP step. Fig. 4 (b)(c)(d) shows a satisfactory microfluidic
structure (nozzle diameter 9-11m, the circular edge of the
nozzle window is not very smooth because of the patterning
resolution 1m of UV aligner but its sidewall roughness is
only 10 nm by AFM inspection; microchamber window
(48m52m) (28m32m)). Fig. 4 (e) shows a
incomplete edge profile without PDMS planarization proce-
dure, its chamber neck is seriously shorten and the uneven
3
Fig. 4. The schematic fabrication process of microfluidic structure on Si (a);
the microscopic pictures of a fabricated microfluidic structure by process (a):
(b)(d) are top view; (c) a 3D view, the nozzle is 911m in diameter,
microchamber window is (48m52m)(28m32m), 25m in depth;
the nozzle and main channel are 95m deep; (e) a fabricated microstructure
without PDMS planarization procedure. Schematic diagram of anodic bonding
method to form the closed printer head structure (f). A closeup top view of a
bonded printing unit (g), the red dot lines stand for the profiles of microbubble
generators with graphene electrodes.
surface cannot be sealed when bonding to form the printer
head.
Graphene was reported to function as a interlayer to enhance
the adhesion between Si and glass substrate in anodic bond-
ing [18]. With several graphene film flakes scattered on the
blank surface of the Si microfluidic structure as medium (as
schematically shown in Fig. 4(f)), our printer head prototype is
successfully obtained (see a bonded printing unit in Fig. 4(g))
where the optimal bonding parameters are 350, 900V in our
experimental results.
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4 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Fig. 5. A printer head prototype to test.
III. P ERFORMANCE OF P RINTING U NIT
A. Experimental Method
The printer head prototype is mounted to a printed
circuit board (PCB) with wires connecting the electrodes of
microbubble generators and temperature sensors to the voltage
source for their performance characterization (see Fig. 5).
A testing system is developed with functions of voltage pulse
generation, data acquisition and video capturing with a graph-
ical user interface based on Labview software. To avoid water
electrolysis, we use sine wave pulses to drive the microbubble
generators at present. For each printing unit, the system
can output individual programmable sine pulse to each
microbubble generator, and collect its surrounding temperature
by the resistance acquisition of CNT sensor simultaneously.
The procedure of microbubble generation and ink droplet
ejection are captured at 50 frame/s by two CCD cameras
oriented in-plane and vertically, respectively and concurrently.
The timing starts at the moment of input voltage applying.
The bubble nucleation is timed when a visible light spot
(corresponding to a bubble with a diameter of 2m) appears
on the video (this causes a timing error 20 ms at 50 frame/s).
B. Performance of Microbubbles Generation
Before the initiation of droplet ejection by microbubble
generation, we test the performance of each microbubble
generator separately.
The initial resistances of two microbubble generators in a
printing unit are usually different, e.g., the one #1 located
near the chamber neck is 65k and the other #2 is 104k.
Subjected to voltage pulses of 7.2 V and 9.4 V at 1 kHz, their
bubble nucleation happen at 11.1s and 18.6s, with power con-
sumption calculated to be 398W and 425W, respectively.
Their duration for bubble to reach the diameter of 20m is 3.1s
and 3.9s. With higher input voltage, i.e., higher input power,
bubble nucleation appears earlier. Under voltage of 7.3V, 7.6V
and 7.8V on microbubble generator #1, i.e., power of 410W,
444W and 468W, the nucleation happened at 7.2s, 0.8s and
0.65s. Under voltage of 9.6V, 9.7V and 9.8V on microbubble
Fig. 6. Estimated electrical energy required for bubble nucleation with
different input power for individual bubble generation.
generator #2, i.e., power of 443W, 452W and 462W,
the nucleation happened at 8.8s, 1.2s and 0.9s.
To balance between the power consumption and the speed
of bubble generation, it is necessary to have a look at
the conversion efficiency from electrical energy to bubble
generation and growth. Suppose all the electrical energy is
consumed by microbubble nucleation, then it can be calculated
by the product of the input power and application time before
bubble nucleation. As shown in Fig. 6, the lower power input,
the higher electric energy is consumed by bubble nucleation.
Moreover, for every input power increase of 10W, the electric
energy required for bubble generation is decreased by 57mJ.
This means that the energy conversion efficiency is increased
by 5%10%, speculating that the normalized energy stands
for or at least is proportional to the utilizing efficiency of
electric heating energy. Accordingly, the higher input power,
the lower heat loss before the bubble nucleation. Increasing the
input power can not only speed up the bubble nucleation and
growth, but also improve the utilizing efficiency of electric
heating energy. Meanwhile, for this specific printing unit,
when the input power is over 450W, the electric energy
required for bubble generation is lower than 0.5mJ and the
efficiency is over 70%. This indicates that the highest effi-
ciency is to drive the microbubble generators at their maximum
voltage without electrical broken, e.g., 20V for single CNT
and single layer graphene structure in our experimental results,
which is still limited by the power source if in consideration
of integration.
C. Behavior of Droplet Ejection
Fig. 7(a)(b)(c)(d) shows the procedure of the microbubble
growth and droplet ejection sequences captured in the video
under 7.3V and 9.6V/1kHz at 1# and 2# respectively and
simultaneously (their minimum power for microbubble
nucleation might change a little bit after several cycling).
The bubble growth rates are plotted in Fig. 7(e). At 4.2s,
the microbubble nucleation appeared at #1 (near the chamber
neck, see Fig. 7(a)), 0.9s later, it happened to #2 (see Fig. 7(b)).
Then these two microbubbles grew bigger quickly in the
following seconds (see Fig.7(c)). At 7.1s, their diameters
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XIANG et al.: THERMAL INK-JET PRINTER HEAD PROTOTYPE WITH FULL CARBON BASED MICROBUBBLE GENERATOR
Fig. 7. CCD image sequences of micro-bubble growth (a)-(c) and the
trajectory of the corresponding droplet ejected with nozzle position shifted (d).
(e) The bubble growth rate in the tested printing unit.
reached 30m and 25m (at 1# and 2#), and a droplet
ejection from the nozzle (see Fig. 7(d)) was captured. It is
found that, under the same conditions, the bubble nucleation
time of #1 and #2 are 2.9s and 3.5s shorter respectively than
they worked separately. Apparently, when two generators
work at the same time, their efficiency to heat the equivalent
volume of ink are higher than they work alone, the rates of
bubble nucleation and bubble growth are accelerated.
Fig. 7(e) depicts the relationship between the bubble diam-
eter and the duration time of input voltage. The bubbles grow
fast at the beginning, and their rates are decreased due to more
convection and higher pressure in microchamber that makes it
need more input power to maintain the bubble growth rates.
Previous research has shown that the bubble valve structure
and bubble merging to cut off the droplet can efficiently
eliminate the satellite droplet [19], [20]. In our current exper-
imental results, a satellite droplet appeared and disappeared
0.01s later because that the merging of two microbubbles did
not happen before droplet ejection although they did in an open
water circumstance testing before bonding to form the closed
structure. It is conjectured that the distance of two heaters is
5
still too big and it will be decreased a little bit in our modified
layout design. Meanwhile, increase the input voltage to speed
up the bubble generation might also increase the chance of
bubble merging. The effort to speed up the bubble nucleation,
growth and droplet ejection will be done in the future after
our image capture system is upgraded.
So far, the total power consumption is still compara-
ble to our previous CNT-metal based microbubble genera-
tor, we speculate that the total thermal conductivity of the
fabricated CNT-grpahene hybrid structure is affected by its
inner interface thermal transport, i.e., lateral CNT separation
and interlayer distance between graphene sheets , e.g., very
dense packing of long CNTs and graphene could significantly
increase the out-of-plane thermal conductivity[9], [21]. The
thermal management can be later tuned with widely spaced
short CNTs with single layer graphene in the hybrid structure.
The smallest droplet ejected in our current experimental
has a diameter about 45m, i.e., a volume of 0.03pl at
minimum, indicating a very high spatial/printing resolution of
>2000/4000 dpi, with reference to Tsengs work [20].
D. Detection of Microenvironment
In general, CNT has a negative temperature coefficient
of resistance [22], our CNTs are measured to be -0.14%.
As shown in Fig. 1(b), each microchamber has two CNT
temperature sensors located at the outsider of two bubble
generators. During the microbubble generation and droplet
ejection, our lab-built measurement system collects the real-
time resistances of CNT sensors and the temperature in
microchamber can be figured out.
Fig.8(a) plots the real-timely measured resistance and
calculated temperature variations of sensor #1 (closer to the
chamber neck, the other sensor #2 is broken unfortunately)
during a printing unit testing. When the first bubble nucleated
on the microbubble generator #1 (near the chamber neck,
initial resistance 65 k) at 4.2s, the sensor resistance
was decreased to 704.3k with a R of 235.7k (under
constant current of 200nA, initial resistance 940k at 25),
corresponding to 204.1 at that moment. When the second
bubble nucleated on the microbubble generator #2 (initial
resistance 104 k) at 5.1s, the sensor resistance reached its
lowest value of 692.4k with the R of 247.6 k, accordingly
the temperature was the highest 213.1. Afterwards,
the resistance and the temperature almost kept constant with
slight fluctuation of 10 k and 10 till the droplet ejection.
Compared with the transient simulation of temperature
at the center of microbubble generator and sensor by finite
element analysis (FEA) using ANSYS (the strong and
weak convection coefficients are 104 W/m2 K and 103 W/m2 K,
respectively.) as shown in Fig. 8, we can find that the real time
temperature curve is very similar to the transient FEA calcu-
lation under strong convection at temperature above 100, and
it is the converse around 100 or less. Therefore, we can infer
that the heat transfer of the microenvironment in a printing
unit during microbubble generation and droplet ejection is a
weak convection before the phase change from water to vapor,
and strong convection after that and till bubble generation.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
6 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Fig. 8. (a) Experimentally measured resistance and calculated temperature
of the sensor during bubble generation and droplet ejection of a printing unit,
with comparison to a transient (a) and steady (b) temperature simulation of
the temperature sensor and nearby microbubble generator (MG) by ANSYS.
The strong and weak convection coefficient underwater is 104 W/m2 K and
103 W/m2 K, respectively.
Moreover, there exists a lagging of temperature rising at the
beginning, which means the coefficient at lower temperature
is actually smaller than that in the FEA calculation. Overall,
lower temperature lower convection coefficient. We can
see from the measured temperature curve, during the first
few seconds, the temperature near the temperature sensor
rises quickly because of the lower heat convection. As the
temperature rises, its rising rate goes down as the liquid
convection is increased. When the heat dissipation and input
power reach equilibrium, the temperature keeps constant.
The systematic error in the temperature probing of its
surrounding environment of microbubble generators can be
also estimated. Under strong convection condition, the cal-
culated steady temperature at the center of sensor #1 is
7.1 lower than that of the microbubble generator #1 as
shown in Fig. 8(b), this is due to the distance of 5m
between the sensor and microbubble generator typically. It can
be lowered by decreasing their distance in theory, but too
small distance may crosslink CNTs between the microbubble
generator and temperature sensor. Certainly, the actual error
might be variable as the organization of CNTs may be scat-
tered in the fabricated printing units and their electro-thermal
properties would somehow fluctuating as well. Nevertheless,
the temperature probing provides evidences for the future
precise control strategy of printing and structure modification
of printer head design.
We are now considering a feedback control based on the
real-time temperature monitoring of microenvironment. To fit
the temperature response of printing unit corresponding to the
microbubble growth might be an approach. The resistance of
temperature sensor near the droplet ejection time might be set
as the threshold to stop the applying of the input voltage until
the microbubble disappear, waiting for next heating cycle.
IV. C ONCLUSION
So far, our work demonstrates a successful application
of full-carbon device in MEMS. A novel thermal ink-jet
printer head prototype with carbon nanotubes-graphene hybrid
structure based microbubble generator and carbon nanotubes
based temperature sensor is fabricated and characterized. Very
tiny droplet with volume of 0.03pl corresponding to very
high resolution spatial/printing resolution of >2000/4000 dpi
is obtained by driving two microbubble generators in a printing
unit with nozzle diameter less than 10m. The real-time
temperature probing of microbubble generation and droplet
ejection reveals the dynamic behavior of heat convection in
the printing unit, providing evidence for precise control of
thermal ink-jet printing. Further scaling down the nozzle and
microchamber of printing unit can reduce its power consump-
tion and improve the resolution. We are seeking a feedback
control of the microbubble generator to benefit its application
in our printer head and other MEMS devices and systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would thank Analytical and Testing Center
in Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Micro/
Nanofabrication Platform in Wuhan National Laboratory for
Optoelectronics.
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Yunhong Xiang received the B.Eng. degree in
physics and materials science from Anhui Univer-
sity, China, in 2013, and the M.Eng. degree in
microelectronics and solid-state electronics from the
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in
2016. His thesis is focused on the design and fabrica-
tion of a thermal printer head based on carbon hybrid
nanostructure. He is currently an Hardware Engineer
with China Mobile Communications Corporation.
Lvhui Jiang received the B.Eng. degree in elec-
tronic science and technology from the Huazhong
University of Science and Technology, China,
in 2013; the M.Eng. degree in microelectronics and
solid-state electronics with research on the fabri-
cation and characteristic of microbubble genera-
tor based on carbon hybrid nanostructure in 2016.
He is currently a Process Engineer with Huawei
Technologies Co. Ltd.
7
Yu Zhu received the bachelors degree in engineer-
ing from the School of Electronics and Information
Engineering, Anhui University, in 2013. Since 2013,
he is currently pursuing the masters degree in
microelectronics and solid-state electronic with the
Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
China. He has been pursuing the Ph.D degree
since 2016. His research interests are carbon
nanomaterial and devices.
Changsheng Chen received the bachelors degree
in physics science and technology from Lanzhou
University, China, in 2016. Since 2016, he has been
pursuing the masters degree in microelectronics and
solid-state electronics with the School of Optical
and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of
Science and Technology, China. His research interest
is MEMS/NEMS.
Yangyang Chen received the bachelors degree
in electronic science and technology from Hubei
University, China, in 2010, and the masters degree
in microelectronics and solid-state electronics from
the Huazhong University of Science and Technology
(HUST), China, in 2013. He has been pursuing
the Ph.D. degree with the School of Optical
and Electronic Information, HUST, since 2013.
His research interests are nanomaterial and
nanoelectronics.
Wenli Zhou received the bachelors degree in
measurement technology and instrumentation, and
the masters degree in semiconductor devices and
microelectronics from the Huazhong University of
Science and Technology (HUST), China, in 1990
and 1995, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in
2004. She joined as a Faculty Member with the
Department of Electronic Science and Technology,
HUST, in 1995, and is involved in the teaching and
research of microelectronics. From 2000 to 2005,
she was a Ph.D. Student and Post-Doctoral Fellow
involved in research with MEMS/NEMS in the Department of Automation
and Computer-Aided Engineering, Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is
currently a Professor with the School of Optical and Electronic Information,
HUST. She also did research on the interface technology of novel merged
network by using FPGA and embeded systems. She was a Visiting Scholar
in the Laboratory of Microsystem, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering, UCLA, from 2014 to 2015. She is the author of one book chapter,
over 60 papers, and over 20 patents. Her current research interests are focused
on MEMS/NEMS, carbon devices, and integration.