The last decade has seen dramatic advances in creation and
miniaturization in the science and technology of
Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS). MEMS combine mechanical and
electrical properties in devices that can be fabricated using the
batch-processing technology of integrated circuits. The ultimate goal
is to have MEMS on a nanoscale, and the first such devices are now
dominating the Special Topics list of the hottest papers in the field.
The 10-year and two-year rankings reflect the movement of this
technology from concept to reality. The 10-year ranking is dominated
by reviews of the technologies necessary for creating MEMS—soft
lithography, which is the #1 paper for the decade, micromachining,
photoresists, and three-dimensional self-assembly techniques. Other
hot papers in the 10-year ranking review the materials of MEMS and the
unique quantum mechanical and physical properties of phenomena at
these nanometer scales.
The ranking of the hottest papers over the past two years still
includes reviews of the methodologies for creating, testing, and
studying MEMS devices, but the list is dominated by descriptions of
specific devices, beginning with the hottest paper, which describes a
fully synthetic nanoscale rotational actuator. Other hot papers
discuss the electromechanical properties of thin-film piezoelectrics,
the use of nanobelts as cantilevers, and the development of MEMS
switches, optical lenses, and tunable filters. Also appearing in the
two-year rankings are articles discussing the nuances of specific MEMS
applications, such as drug-delivery components, small-volume
chemistry, and nucleic acid and antibody assays.
Methodology
To construct this database,
papers were extracted based on topic-search-supplied keywords for MEMS. The keywords used were as follows:
MEMS
--OR--
microelectromechanical system*
The baseline time span for this database
is 1994-2004 (sixth bimonthly. The resulting database contained 3,906 (10 years)
and 1,823 (2 years) papers;
8,497 authors; 57 countries; 606 journals; and 1,638 institutions.
Rankings
Once the database was in place,
it was used to generate the lists of top 20 papers (two, and ten years
periods), authors, journals,
institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1994-2004 (sixth
bimonthly).
The top 20 papers are ranked
according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution,
and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total
papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds and corresponding
percentages used to determine
scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to
total cites/paper, and total papers respectively are as follows:
| Entity: |
Scientists |
Institutions |
Countries |
Journals |
| Thresholds: |
5 |
8 |
7 |
6 |
| Percentage: |
1% |
1% |
50% |
20% |
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