Micromachined ceramics play an important role in applications where high temperature stability is crucial. Harsh application environments represent a dual challenge for MEMS. Not only are materials with high thermal, chemical, and mechanical stability required, but they should also be micromachinable at the 1 to 1000 micrometer scale. Synkera's micromachined AAO satisfy all of these difficult requirements.

The Intrinsic anisotropic morphology and chemistry of anodic alumina allows its micromachining via a process that combines features of both bulk and surface MEMS and offers great design flexibility, including the creation of 3-D ceramic microstructures (See examples in the figure).

SEM images of 3-D ceramic microstructures

Resulting microstructures from amorphous anodic alumina can be converted into nanocrystalline gamma- and alpha-alumina, further increasing its chemical resistance and stability at high temperatures