SUBMICRON NIOBIUM ELECTRODES FOR DIELECTROPHORESIS APPLICATIONS

Microelectrodes consisting of a vertical structure made by the superpo sition of niobium, titanium and gold layers have been fabricated using electron beam lithography and thin film technique. The niobium layer improves the mechanical strength and ensures a good resistance of the structure to the galvanic corrosion which is a very important characte ristic when dealing with biological particles. The proximity correctio ns have been applied in order to obtain the PMMA resist with a suitabl e profile for the lift-off of the Ti/Au layers. This corrections allow ed us to setup the process to obtain electrode gaps down to 0.2 mu m.