Silicon processing capabilities

The rear glass wall can be replaced by a silicon VLSI die to make a silicon backplane SLM as in Fig. 5 b. The SLM is now a reflective modulator with the aluminum from the second metal layer of the VLSI process acting as a mirror [8]. Circuitry on the backplane can be used to address the FLC pixels as either dynamic random access memory (DRAM) [9] or static RAM (SRAM) [10]. The silicon backplane SLM is very important to the development of nondisplay applications as it allows large arrays of small pixels to be built on a silicon wafer capable of high addressing speeds. Compared with line-at-a-time multiplexed SLMs, these sil-... 

The design and fabrication of some gas-phase micro reactors are oriented on those developed for chip manufacture in the framework of microelectronics, relying deeply on silicon micromachining. There are obvious arguments in favor the infrastructure exists at many sites world-wide, the processes are reliable, have excellent standards (e.g. regarding precision) and have proven mass-manufacturing capability. In addition, sensing and control elements as well as the connections for the whole data transfer (e.g. electric buses) can be made in this way. 

Silica-based materials obtained by the sol-gel process are perhaps the most promising class of functional materials capable to meet such a grand objective. In the sol-gel process liquid precursors such as silicon alkoxides are mixed and transformed into silica via hydrolytic polycondensation at room temperature. Called soft chemitry or chimie douce, this approach to the synthesis of glasses at room temperature and pressure and in biocompatible conditions (water, neutral pH) has been pioneered by Livage and Rouxel in the 1970s, and further developed by Sanchez, Avnir, Brinker and Ozin. 

The implied capability of these plasma deposits to inhibit corrosion at metal surfaces may be of practical as well as of basic importance. An important consideration in this respect is the rapid rate of deposition for such protective coatings attainable at micro-wave frequencies. Since plasma technology is still in a process of evolution, optimum deposition kinetics cannot yet be stated however, the marked effect of excitation frequency on the deposition of organo-silicones can be documented (10), as in Fig. 3. Here, using terminology and comparative data due to Yasuda et al. (2). it is shown that deposition rates in microwave plasmas exceed those at lower (e.g. radio) frequencies by about an order of magnitude. 

---