The MIT Energy Research Council

How can one make a tiny fuel-burning engine? An engine needs a compressor, a combustion chamber, a spinning turbine, and so on. Making millimeter-scale versions of those components from welded and riveted pieces of metal isn't feasible. So, like computer-chip makers, the MIT researchers turned to etched silicon wafers.

Their microengine is made of six silicon wafers, piled up like pancakes and bonded together. Each wafer is a single crystal with its atoms perfectly aligned, so it is extremely strong. To achieve the necessary components, the wafers are individually prepared using an advanced etching process to eat away selected material. When the wafers are piled up, the surfaces and the spaces in between produce the needed features and functions.

Making microengines one at a time would be prohibitively expensive, so the researchers again followed the lead of computer-chip makers. They make 60 to 100 components on a large wafer that they then (very carefully) cut apart into single units.

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Turbochargers

Turbochargers for the micro gas-turbine engine.
Photo courtesy/MIT