Prof. Herbert Shea
Microsystems for Space Technologies Laboratory, EPFL, Switzerland
April 6, 2010 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 521 Cory Hall, Hogan Room
Host: Kris Pister
MEMS offer great promise for increasing the functionality of spacecrafts while decreasing their mass, thus enabling new satellite architectures and allowing nanosatellites to match the performance of conventional spacecraft. Our lab at the EPFL in Switzerland develops micromachined thrusters and inertial sensors for spacecraft propulsion and navigation, as well as polymer-based microactuators and plasma light-sources for chip-scale atomic clocks for use on Earth and in space. An overview of our activities will be given, with an emphasis on three topics: 1) arrays of microfabricated colloid thrusters emitting molecular ions at 40 km/s. 2) MEMS inertial sensor directly measuring the gravity gradient in orbit, used as an Earth sensor requiring no optical access, 3) polymer micro-actuators capable of vertical displacements greater than 50% of their radius, with applications in tunable optics and cell manipulation.
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