Silicon Micro-Machines for Fun and Profit

Over the last decade or so a group of us, while working at Bell Labs, have been able to develop a large number of silicon micromachines for a wide range of applications. In this article, which is part of a special volume to celebrate the career of Professor Francis Gasparini who is an old friend and colleague, we review the devices we have been able to build and discuss their applications. These applications range from scientific experiments looking at single vortex dynamics and the observation of the Casimir effect to technological applications such as a large, all-optical switch. In this article we make the point that MEMS devices and VLSI processing are the New Physics Machine Shop.