Brigham Young University has extensive facilities, equipment, and other resources for conducting research in compliant mechanisms and MEMS. , and the facilities, equipment, and other resources required to perform the work are available. The key facilities needed are the laboratory, computer hardware and software, prototyping facilities, and test equipment. These are summarized below.

Laboratory

The Compliant Mechanisms Research Group (CMR) is housed in the Mechanical Design Laboratory, which consists of 2,000 sq ft of laboratory space in three rooms. This includes graduate student workstations, conference room facilities, computer terminals, custom test facilities, a MEMS test room, and other resources.

Computer Resources

The following computer resources are available to the research group:

• Supercomputing capacity is available through BYU's Fulton Supercomputing Laboratory (FSL)
• The research laboratory is furnished with eleven personal computers.
• Extensive computer hardware and software resources are available to the CMR through CAEDM (an engineering network supported by the Fulton College of Engineering and Technology). This includes extensive CAD and CAE tools (such as ABACUS, ANSYS, ADAMS, etc.) needed for modeling compliant mechanisms and MEMS.

Prototyping Facilities

Facilities for the design, fabrication, and testing of compliant mechanisms and MEMS are available.

Macro


• The Mechanical Engineering Projects Lab is a 2,000 sq ft facility dedicated to prototype fabrication. It is intended for student use, and one full-time staff member and several part-time staff members supervise the facility. The lab includes numerous CNC machines and other machining equipment.
• The School of Technology machining labs are used by the CMR and include numerous CNC machines, an abrasive water-jet cutter, wire electrical discharge machining (EDM), and RAM EDM.
• The Rapid Prototyping Lab includes multiple options for rapid prototyping devices. Although the material used by the rapid prototype machines is typically too brittle for compliant mechanisms, it works well for looks-like prototypes to supplement proof-of-concept works-like prototypes.
• The Precision Machining Lab (PML) is maintained by the Fulton College of Engineering and Technologyand is operated by full-time professional machinists. Unlike the facilities mentioned abovewhere students would do the majority of the prototyping work and the facilities are available without a feework in the PML is performed by professional machinists. There are fees for using the PML, but they are highly subsidized by the Fulton College of Engineering and Technology.


Micro


• The Integrated Microelectronics Laboratory is a 1650 sq ft class 10 clean room maintained and staffed by the Fulton College of Engineering and Technology. The Laboratory has software and workstations for designing masks used in lithographic patterning of substrates, and all of the necessary equipment for photolithography, etching, oxidation, thin film deposition, device testing and device packaging.
• The Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Nano-optics Laboratory includes a Molecular Imaging Pico Plus AFM/STM system, Digital Instruments Dimension 3100, large sample AFM Digital Instruments Multimode AFM, custom fabricated confocal optical/atomic force microscope for simultaneous AFM optical measurements, single photon counting APD Low light level spectrometer, and CVI Digikrom DK240I imaging spectrometer with Apogee Alta TE cooled CCD.
• The Electron Microscopy Laboratory has a total of 6 electron microscopes: 2 transmission electron microscopes and 4 scanning electron microscopes. It includes a Phillips XL30 environmental thermal field emission scanning electron microscope (FEG ESEM), with Nabity Nanometer Pattern Generation System (NPGS) e-beam lithography system.

Test Equipment

Some of the major test equipment, not described above, available to the CMR is described below:

• Commercial equipment is available for testing some device properties. This includes materials testing equipment such as an Instron and MTS tensile test machines and equipment for creep, fatigue, hardness, and impact testing.
• Custom equipment has been designed and built by the CMR for testing compliant mechanisms. This includes a reconfigurable compliant mechanism fatigue testing machine and equipment for measuring the force-displacement relationships of devices that are outside the range of commercial equipment.
• Metrology equipment at BYU available to the CMR includes a coordinate measuring machine, optical comparitor, profilometer, optical microscopes, and electron microscope facilities.
• Other basic equipment needed for measurement and testing are available either in the CMR or through the Department of Mechanical Engineering.