Orientation- and position-controlled alignment of asymmetric silicon microrod on a substrate with asymmetric electrodes

In this paper, we demonstrate the orientation-controlled alignment of asymmetric Si microrods on a glass substrate with an asymmetric pair of electrodes. The Si microrods have the shape of a paddle with a blade and a shaft part, and the pair of electrodes consists of a narrow electrode and a wide electrode. By applying AC bias to the electrodes, the Si microrods suspended in a fluid align in such a way to settle across the electrode pair, and over 80% of the aligned Si microrods have an orientation with the blade and the shaft of the paddle on the wide and the narrow electrodes, respectively. When Si microrods have a shell of dielectric film and its thickness on the top face is thicker than that on the bottom face, 97.8% of the Si microrods are aligned with the top face facing upwards. This technique is useful for orientation-controlled alignment of nano- and microsized devices that have polarity or a distinction between the top and bottom faces.