Albert P. Pisano (Advisor)

MEMS Hydrogel Sensors for pH and Glucose Measurements

Supone Manakasettharn
Albert P. Pisano
Liwei Lin
2008
A new formulation of a pHand a glucoseresponsive hydrogel was developed and then integrated into an interdigitated MEMS sensor. This new hydrogel was characterized for swelling response as well as for impedance response (resistance and capacitance) when used as both a pH and a glucose sensor. The standard pHresponsive hydrogel, which was a copolymer of 2hydroxyethyl methacrylate and...

Localized Strain Sensing Using High Resolution, Highly-sensitive MEMS Resonant Strain Gauges

Matthew Wei-Jen Chan
Albert P. Pisano
Liwei Lin
2010

This thesis presents experimental measurements of the first-ever MEMS double ended tuning fork (DETF) resonant strain gauge for localized strain field sensing, successfully bonded to steel by rapid inductive heating. With a gauge length of just 200μm, the presentedMEMS resonant strain gauge enables a high spatial resolution sensor capable of accurately detecting localized strains better than commonly used foil strain gauges, which average strain measurements over much larger areas. The...

Line-of-Sight Sealed Silicon Carbide Diaphragms for Harsh Environment Sensors

Debbie Gahaton Jones
Albert P. Pisano
Alice Agogino
Oscar Dubon
2007
Silicon carbide (SiC) is currently being developed as a platform material for micro scale devices that operate in harsh environments. One vision of the future is an all-SiC sensor chip composed of crystalline SiC substrate, doped polycrystalline SiC structures, and sputtered amorphous SiC sealing layers. Such a chip would have minimal internal stresses over a wide thermal range. The chemical inertness, as well as the electrical and mechanical properties of SiC in harsh...

Liquid Fuel Injection System for Mini-Scale Rotary Engines

Sang-Won Park
Albert P. Pisano
A. Carlos Fernandez-Pello
2005

In an attempt to optimize the performance of small scale internal combustion engines, an investigation and development effort for a liquid fuel delivery system is ongoing. Engine operation sets a pair of primary design constraints, fuel mass flow rate and maximum droplet diameter. The fuel mass flow rate requirement is dictated by the stoichiometry, the engine geometry, and the rotational speed. The droplet diameter constraint is ...

Jewel Bearings for Micro Disk Drives

Kelly Yang
Albert P. Pisano
1996

In current disk drives, ball bearings are typically used for the actuator pivot. The function of the ball bearing is to maintain both small frictional torque and small backlash at the pivot as the actuator suspension arm is being rotated to seek tracks ...

Integrated Biophysical Microfluidic Platforms for Pathogen Detection and Single Cell Analysis

Poorya Sabounchi
Luke P. Lee
Albert P. Pisano
Liwei Lin
Daniel A. Fletcher
2007
Pathogen detection is of the utmost importance primarily for health and safety reasons. The most common problem encountered with current pathogen monitoring techniques is the inverse relationship between specificity versus sensitivity and speed. Current tools used for pathogen identification are accurate but require a vast amount of sample preparation time, typically from an experienced operator in a laboratory setting and therefore not suitable for...

Integrated Mesoscopic Fluidic Interconnects for Micro-Machined Fluidic Devices

Jennifer Ann Scalf
Albert P. Pisano
Dorian Liepmann
1999

An approach to fluidic interconnection which integrates a mesoscopic needle with a fluidic micro-device and which uses a membrane as a connector has been developed. This concept has been realized by the use of fusion bonding to create embedded devices within the...

Inductor Optimization for Passive Wireless Implantable Capacitive Sensors

Neel Shah
Shuvo Roy
Albert P. Pisano
2011

There are many clinical scenarios in which continuous monitoring of vital physiological signs is desired. Pressure monitoring in particular has diverse uses in the body. Specific application areas include checking arterial blood pressure for detection of changing heart conditions, monitoring intracranial pressure for stroke victims, tracking post-surgery pressure profiles in spinal columns to determine treatment efficacy, and recording subtle changes in intraocular pressure to...

Integration of Hydrogels and Plastics into Microfabrication Processes towards a MEMS RF-Interrogated Biosensor

Sebastien Payen
Albert P. Pisano
Liwei Lin
Amy E. Herr
2007
Very inexpensive biosensors capable of monitoring biometrics data of a living organism have long been a goal of biomedical device technology. As such the integration of polymers and plastics are a good solution to achieve low cost and powerless devices. This dissertation presents experimental results on the integration of hydrogels (a class of polymer which swells in water) into microfabrication processes and the development of a new, all-plastic pH sensor. In particular, the work done on oxygen diffusion in hydrogels...

HexSil Micro Disk Drive Arm

Roel Dieron
Albert P. Pisano
Roberto Horowitz
1996

The mechanical properties of a novel material is characterized as part of the current effort to develop an integrated micro disk drive arm using mold micro-machining technology. A theoretical and finite element model of HexSil, a sandwich panel like material with hexago...