| Sumario: |
Biotribology is a field dedicated to the understanding of many sliding and frictional interfaces in living tissue. The field
gained popularity in the 1990´s due to miniaturization of electromechanical components which prompted issues related
to grinding and wear at smaller scales. This is, since MEMs and NEMS have gained control over medication,
biotechnology, optics, hardware, and avionics and, due to the scale, continuum mechanics cannot accurately describe
such nanoscale phenomena.
MEMs and NEMS are increasingly used in industrial and defense applications. In chemistry these devices allow smaller
reagent volumes and faster reaction times, and the simultaneous execution of multiple types of analyses. In
biotechnology, these are used to examine DNA or proteins in order to detect ailments or find new medications. They are
also known as DNA arrays, and they're capable of identifying thousands of genes at once. In the pharmaceutical
industry, they serve as drug delivery systems. Indeed there are several applications for such kind of devices and in order
to increase the number of fields of application, it is necessary to overcome several tribological challenges.
Thus, this review focuses on tribology in Bio MEMS/NEMS, its applications, advancements and challenges since device
miniaturization is one of the frontier technologies of the 21st century
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