By Susan J. Proctor, Ph.D.
Photography by Greg Ehlers

Growing tiny machines - layer by layer.

There's something enchanting about miniatures - toy soldiers, model trains, little boats, the Lord's Prayer on a rice grain, miniature houses, matchbox cars. With them you can fight military battles, guide steam trains through mountains, build whole towns, and sail the seven seas. Imagine, however, miniatures so small you can barely see them. This is the realm of Ash Parameswaran, professor in SFU's school of engineering science. Only, his miniatures aren't playthings.

They are "micromachines," tiny working machines smaller than the diameter of a human hair, their moving gears, shafts, and levers tinier than a speck of dust. Ash heads up SFU's Institute of Micromachine and Microfabrication Research (IMMR), which was set up in 1993 to enhance micromachining research and development. So far the group has created a scale that weighs an animal cell to the nearest billionth of a gram, a gas-flow meter, a breathalyzer test system, a prostate cancer detector, a microphone, a heat source, and various gear trains, sensors, and switches.

Micromachines are the way of the future. Picture a tiny submarine in your bloodstream seeking and destroying cancer cells; or miniscule robots penetrating earthquake rubble in search of victims; or insect-sized airplanes detecting land mines. The current airbag trigger is a micromachine; it measures acceleration (changes in car speed). In fact, one of Ash's IMMR colleagues, Albert Leung, developed an improved "accelerometer" that's being incorporated into new airbags and Nike athletic shoes.

"At the moment, however, we're mostly creating a knowledge base, " says Ash. IMMR's present focus is micromachines for fibre optics and biomedicine. "Most of our achievements aren't in products yet. "

So, how does one build a micromachine? "The same way you make computer chips, " replies Ash. "You grow it - layer by layer. "

Basically you lay down alternating thin layers of glass (silicon dioxide) and semiconductor such as metal. As each layer is laid down, the pattern for a circuit or machine part or space is imprinted on it. Ultimately the unmarked areas and the glass layers are dissolved away, leaving the machine.

Seen under a scanning electron microscope, Ash's micromachines burst forth like brilliant works of art. They have a cold, austere beauty, derived from an exquisite simplicity of form and function.

"It comes down to symmetry and shape, " says Ash. "You see what it is. It grabs you. When you ponder the micromachine's size - a fourth the thickness of a human hair - then the beauty and intricacy become 'mysterious.' For some people, understanding a micromachine is like trying to understand God. "

How did you get interested in micromachines?

"I grew up in India. When I was five or six, my uncle would visit us from his home in Singapore. Once, he brought me a Meccano set. That got me tinkering and building things. He'd also bring me mechanical windup toys; I'd take them apart to see how they worked. My father was an important influence, too. In his spare time, he fixed mechanical watches - and he worked for the railway. He would take me to see the steam engines, with their huge crankshafts going back and forth, and the control room with instruments and complicated machinery.

"Actually, as a child, I wished to become a medical doctor when I grew up. Later, I became upset about hurting things. I didn't want to dissect insects or other animals. So I got attracted to the mechanical side of engineering science. In 1982, I got my undergraduate degree in India in electronics and communications engineering. "

Ash Parameswaran came to Canada and entered the master's program at the University of Alberta. "Halfway through it someone established a microelectronics group that focused on building tiny computer chips. I was soon hooked on microelectronics. Later, a visiting professor introduced us to the idea of building miniature moving mechanisms on a chip. " Ash received his master's in 1985 and his doctorate in 1990, both from the University of Alberta. He joined SFU"s faculty in 1990.

"If you'd asked me in 1997 if I'd ever be interested in things like reading or philosophy, I would have said, 'No. Technology is the ultimate and that's where I'll be!' "

A different perspective

Ash's perception of life changed when he lost a good friend to a brain tumor.

"He was a psychiatrist. I interacted with him as a friend initially - and later, for almost two years, I worked with him on one of his pet theories on cognitive therapy. I helped him prepare a Powerpoint presentation for a conference. In a strange twist of events, just a few days before the conference presentation, he was diagnosed with the tumor and had to undergo surgery right away. I somehow felt that the past two years of interaction with him were almost a kind of 'training' for me to carry his flag for the presentation. I ended up presenting the paper on his behalf. "

The friend died nine months later. During this period, Ash occasionally took philosophy books to his house and read to him by his bedside. "It changed the way I perceive life. I started looking at the arts and nature differently. "

Today, when he has leisure time, Ash immerses himself in the readings of different cultures and ages, including Greek and other philosophies, liberally plucking ideas and synthesizing his own view of the meaning of life. "Does nature really tell you why she created all this? " he asks. "One view is that nature does not hide anything - that the truth is everywhere, and if you know what to look for, you'll know the answer. I recently read a philosophy monograph on one aspect of the Hindu religion. Its author concludes that, in a secular world, you must ask a lot of questions, the right questions, in order to understand the meaning of life. The problem is, whom does one ask? Hindu philosophy says, ask a guru. Others say, ask yourself.

"And that's the biggest personal fight I have with myself - whom do I ask. Maybe in 20 or 30 years, if we meet again, I might have an answer! " aq

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