Microoptoelectromechanical systems

In addition to the term MEMS, categories like microoptoelectromechanical systems (MOEMS), radio-frequency MEMS (RF-MEMS), and MEMS for medical or biomedical application (BioMEMS) have been established. The market for microfabricated devices is still in its infancy and is growing with rates comparable to the first years of microelectronics. According to one market research report, the sales of microfabricated systems was 12 billion in 2004 and is expected to grow with a CAGR of 16% to 25 billion in 2009 [6]. Recent extensions of fields of application are consumer, entertainment, and homeland security. Upcoming new devices are MEMS microphones, microenergy sources, micropumps, chip coolers, and micromachined wafer probes, and this will definitely not be the end of new developments. 

One of the important parameters for the use of metal reflectors in MOEMS (microoptoelectromechanical systems) is the penetration depth (skin depth) of electromagnetic radiation at a given wavelength. In the (3-14) pm range, its value is typically between below 10 nm (aluminum) and 20 nm (nickel) [240]. 

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