Spider Silk as a New Biomaterial for Mems

In this work, spider drag-line silk is introduced for the first time as a new biomaterial for Micro-electro-mechanical Systems (MEMS). The tasks accomplished were focused on material characterization of regenerated spider silk under two conditions: (1) spin-coated thin film formed onto a silicon substrate; (2) formation of a free-standing microbridge (800 × 800 × 150 μm³) obtained by a surface micromachining process with sacrificial etching. Preliminary micro mechanical testing showed the spider silk microstructure having an elastic modulus of 7.251 GPa, an ultimate tensile strength of 21.15 MPa and a loss tangent of 0.044.