Fabrication of Colloid Thrusters using MEMS Technology

  • Park, Kun Joong (School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University) ;
  • Song, Seung Jin (School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University) ;
  • Sanchez, Manuel Martinez (Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
  • Published : 2004.03.01

Abstract

This paper presents the preliminary fabrication results of colloid thrusters which can provide thrust of the order of micro to milli-Newtons. MEMS technology has been used for fabrication, and four essential fabrication techniques - deep etching with nested masks, isotropic plasma etching, anisotropic reactive ion etching, and direct fusion wafer bonding - have been newly developed. Among diverse models which have been designed and fabricated, the fabrication results of 4-inch wafer-based colloid thrusters are presented.

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