ABSTRACT
I thank all of the readers of the first and second editions of Fundamentals of Microfabrication as they made it worthwhile for me to finish this completely revised and very much expanded third edition. As in previous editions I had plenty of eager reviewers in my students and colleagues from all around the world. Students were especially helpful with the question and answer books that come with the three volumes that make up this third edition. I have acknowledged reviewers at the end of each chapter and students that worked on questions and answers are listed in the questions sections. The idea of treating MEMS and NEMS processes as some of a myriad of advanced manufacturing approaches came about while working on a WTEC report on International Assessment Of Research And Development In Micromanufacturing (https://www.wtec.org/ micromfg/report/Micro-report.pdf). For that report we travelled around the US and abroad to visit the leading manufacturers of advanced technology products and quickly learned that innovation and advanced manufacturing are very much interlinked because new product demands stimulate the invention of new materials and processes. The loss of manufacturing in a country goes well beyond the loss of only one class of products. If a technical community is dissociated from manufacturing experience, such as making larger flatpanel displays or the latest mobile phones, such communities cannot invent and eventually can no longer teach engineering effectively. An equally sobering realization is that a country might still invent new technologies paid for by government grants, say in nanofabrication, but not be able to manufacture the products that incorporate them. It is naïve to believe that one can still design new products when disconnected from advanced manufacturing: for a good design one needs to know the latest manufacturing processes and newest materials. It is my sincerest hope that this third edition motivates some of the brightest students to start designing and making things again rather than joining financial institutions that produce nothing for society at large but rather break things.
