Physical Sensors & Devices

Research that includes:

  • Silicon MEMS actuators: comb, electro-thermal, and plastic deformation
  • Precision electronic sensing and measurements of capacitive, frequency, and coulombic MEMS variables
  • Structures and architectures for gyroscopes, accelerometers, micro strain gauges for direct application to rigid structures e.g., steel, and levitated MEMS

BEB18: MEMS Strain Gauges on Steel: Electronic Interfaces for Resonant Sensors

Kenneth Wojciechowski
2005

The objective of this research is to develop electronic interface circuits to measure strain in automobile machine elements with a silicon micromachined resonant sensor. The strain sensor is required to have a resolution of 0.1 microstrain over a range of +/- 1000 microstrain and a measurement bandwidth of 10kHz. The dimensions of the strained areas in the bearings are on the order of 100-200 microns and therefore gauge lengths of the strain sensor must be in this range. The smallest commercially available strain sensors have gauge lengths of around 1mm are too large and thus micro-...

LWL28: Bi-directional Electrothermal Electromagnetic Actuators and Relays

Lufeng Che
2005

Micro relays powered by bi-directional electrothermal electromagnetic actuator has been designed, built and tested. Relays built using these actuators can have single pole double throw (SPDT) configuration. Bi-directional actuators can be used to make bi-stable relays, which only require power consumption during the switching operations. The relays built can switch both high current and high voltages. The off state resistance is over 100 Megaohm with a breakdown voltage exceeding 200V. The on state resistance is around 0.3 ohm can carry several amps before failure. The performance of...

BPN314: Biomimetic Infrared sensor based on the nanogap junction array

Jeonggi Seo
2005

The research that will be conducted in this project is to study the phenomenon of IR detection in pyrophilous jewel beetles and then to implement a MEMS design in order to reach or exceed the thermal sensitivity of 20 mK, standardized detectivity (D*) of 10^8 and field-of-view of 180º for an uncooled photomechanic infrared sensor.

Project end date: 02/07/06

APP55: MEMS Strain Gauge on Steel: Selective Strain Isolation

I-yang Chen
2005

This project aims to design strain isolation trenches into the sensor package such that strain may be selectively isolated in specific sections, and along specific directions thereby reducing the cross-axis sensitivity of the strain sensor. The particular sensor package is an encapsulated, resonating MEMS strain gauge specially designed to be direct-mounted on steel with a strain resolution of 0.1u-strain. To this end, a strain isolation structure was designed that rejects cross-axis strain while still maintaining axial strain fidelity. A test structure is being fabricated to apply...

BEB19: Low-Power High-Performance Analog-to-Digital Converters

Dimitrios Katsis
2006

Develop enabling circuit techniques to increase the compatibility of high performance analog-to-digital converters with deep sub-micron technologies.

Project end date: 08/01/06

DAH4: Strain Sensors for Wind Turbines

Bill Allan
2006

An optical interrogation system for fiber Bragg grating (FBG) strain sensors suitable for use in wind turbine blade (WTB) composite I-beam structures has been developed and tested. An off-the-shelf MEMS-based tunable Fabry-Perot etalon is controlled with a real-time embedded digital signal processor to manage calibration, scanning, signal processing and communications with a host system. A single superluminescent diode sources broadband light to illuminate a single or arrayed set of FBG sensors. Reflected light from the sensors are routed to a photodiode, and is correlated with...

BPN346: TFT Modeling for Single Transistor Sensors

Ya-Mei Chen
2006

This project’s goal is to simulate a bottom-gated, amorphous silicon thin-film transistor’s (a-Si TFT) response to strain caused by a chitosan layer over it.

Project end date: 01/24/07

APP83: MEMS Strain Gauge on Steel - Miniaturization of Transduction Circuits

Anand Jog
David Myers
2007

The Research and Development proposed herein will improve the operating characteristics of traditional machine elements and the applications to which they contribute through the development and application of MEMS microstructures in two major categories. First, we will develop low-cost MEMS strain-sensing modules and the means to rapidly bond them to steel and other structures in large quantities. In addition to wire-based solutions, we will also develop modules for wireless data telemetry and power coupling to enable total systems-level solutions for the MEMS sensor modules. This...

APP56/OO: Thermally-induced residual stresses in MEMS sensors

Bayram Orazov
2007

In the course of eutectically bonding MEMS sensors to a substrate, residual thermal stresses can be induced in the sensor. These stresses have the potential to bias sensor signals, damage encapsulation and alter the operational range of the device. Using thermo- mechanical analyses, the goal of this work is to characterize the residual stresses and seek ways to ameliorate their effects on sensor packaging and operation.

Project end date: 08/14/07

BPN411: Tribology Test Chip for Contacting NEMS design

Donovan Lee
2007

Tribological effects such as surface stiction and charging are not well understood. This research aims to develop test structures to study these phenomenon and give designers an understanding of the challenges we will face as NEMS devices scale. All-electronic metrology is proposed for this tribology chip, which is a departure from the traditional method of optical inspection for MEMS devices.

Project end date: 01/08/08