Département de chimie moléculaire

Despite a large number of proofs of concept in nanotechnologies (e.g., nanosensors), nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) hardly come to the market. One of the bottlenecks is the packaging of NEMS which require handling, positioning, assembling and joining strategies in the mesoscale (from 100 nm to 10 μm, between nanoscale and microscale). It requires models of the interaction forces and adhesion forces dedicated to this particular scale. This paper presents several characteristics of the mesoscale in comparison with nanoscale and microscale. First, it is shown that the distributions of charges observed on the micro-objects and meso-objects would have negligible effects on the nano-objects. Second, the impact of both chemical functionalization and physical nanostructuration on adhesion are presented. Third, the van der Waals forces are increased by local deformations on the mesoscale contrary to the nanoscale where the deformation is negligible. This paper shows some typical characteristics of the mesoscale.