News & Events

BSAC Seminar: Energy Harvesting using Ionic Polymer-Metal Composites

March 17, 2009
Rashi Tiwari University of Nevada, Reno March 17, 2009 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 521 Cory Hall, Hogan Room Host: John Huggins

Power sources for integrated electronics have been a growing concern with the ever-increasing use of portable devices. Recent advancements in "smart" materials have led scientists to explore the application of these materials for energy harvesting applications. An especially promising material is the Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite (IPMC). In 1993, Oguro et al. found that a perfluorinated sulfonate membrane sandwiched between platinum electrodes...

BSAC Seminar: From Component Technology to Microsystems - Sampling of Research Activities of CMBL for Biomedical Applications

March 31, 2009
Prof. Long-Sheng Fan National Tsing-Hua University March 31, 2009 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 521 Cory Hall, Hogan Room Host: Ming Wu

Microsystems can offer new and convenient ways to interact with biological systems in vivo and in vitro and our lab. is constructing some building blocks from component technology (such the"flexible CMOS") to MEMS-inside systems (such as a "nanoMRI") to facilitate these interaction. For the former, I'll use the example of a flexible 8" 0.18um Mixed Signal/RF CMOS circuit technology for medical implant applications. CMOS silicon substrate is...

BSAC Seminar: Microassembly Using Parallel Controllable MEMS Microrobots

April 14, 2009
Dr. Igor Paprotny Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley BSAC Postdoctoral Researcher April 14, 2009 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 521 Cory Hall, Hogan Room Host: Richard White

The talk will encompass Dr. Paprotny's doctoral research on parallel control of stress-engineered MEMS microrobots. Designs, theory and the results of fabrication and testing for a novel parallel microrobotic assembly scheme will be presented. The robots are 240-280 microns by 60 microns by 7-20 microns, and each robot consists of a curved, cantilevered steering arm...

BSAC Seminar: Building a Workhorse MEMS Actuator

April 28, 2009
Qing Bai Agilent Technologies April 28, 2009 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 521 Cory Hall, Hogan Room Host: David Horsley

An increasing variety of applications require MEMS actuators with large travel and force, as well as excellent precision and rapid positioning. In this talk, I'll present an electrically actuated dipole surface drive with unparalleled acceleration of 1000g, a resonant frequency of 17 kHz, and a travel over 15 microns at 70V. This device can be positioned with sub-angstrom resolution and, importantly, operates in ambient conditions which allow it to position...

BSAC Seminar: MEMS for Automotive Applications

April 21, 2009
Dr. Matthias Illing Bosch Research and Technology Center April 21, 2009 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 521 Cory Hall, Hogan Room Host: John Huggins

Automotive applications have been a main driver for innovation and industrialization of MEMS sensors. The talk will show the latest state of the art in this field, explaining some of the major applications and the MEMS sensors behind it. Examples include technologies for CMOS-compatible pressure sensors, high performance gyroscopes and air-quality sensors based on MEMS thermopiles. In an outlook the talk will also describe...

BSAC Seminar: From Carbon Nanotube Springs to Power MEMS: Creating New Capabilities at the Micro and Nano Scales

May 5, 2009
Prof. Carol Livermore Massachusetts Institute of Technology May 5, 2009 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 521 Cory Hall, Hogan Room Host: Ming Wu

Combining new concepts for microsystems with new methods of creating them enables a wide range of small-scale systems. At one extreme, new concepts for power MEMS combined with precision micromachining enable high performance MEMS components for applications from power and energy to high power lasers. At the other extreme, new techniques for micro and nanoscale assembly enable the creation of a wide range of small-scale systems. This talk...

BSAC Seminar: Silicon BioDevices: From Research to Start-up in the Medical Devices Industry

May 12, 2009
Octavian Florescu Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley BSAC Graduate Student Researcher May 12, 2009 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 521 Cory Hall, Hogan Room Host: John Huggins

Effective diagnostic capabilities are paramount to tackling the problems posed by pandemic infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and Dengue. The recent swine flu scare has underlined the need for diagnostic tools that are fast, accurate, easy-to-use and connected. Unfortunately, the transduction from bio-molecule to electrical signal is often time consuming and expensive. To...

BSAC Seminar: Analysis of Vibration Phenomena in MEMS on Wafer Level

June 16, 2009
Dr. Christian Rembe Polytec GmbH June 16, 2009 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Richard Muller

A new type of microscope, the Laser-Scanning Confocal Vibrometer Microscope, has been proven to be an ideal tool for out-of-plane vibration measurements in MEMS. This microscope can measure vibrations with heterodyne laser-Doppler technique. The phase demodulation of the carrier of the heterodyne-interferometer detector signal reveals the instantaneous displacement signal. The instantaneous vibration spectrum of the specimen can be obtained...

BSAC Seminar: Vibration Energy Harvesting - Theory, Modeling, and Devices

June 26, 2009
Dr. Einar Halvorsen Institute for Microsystem Technology, Vestfold University, Norway June 26, 2009 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 521 Cory Hall, Hogan Room Host: Igor Paprotny

Energy harvesting presently receives considerable attention as a means to power wireless sensors. At Vestfold University College we conduct research on MEMS energy harvesters that utilize electrostatic or piezoelectric conversion. This talk will highlight our work from the past two years on theory and modeling of such devices and present device examples. Sinusoidal vibrations are convenient for...

BSAC Seminar: MEMS at The American University in Cairo

August 11, 2009
Prof. Sherif Sedky The American University in Cairo August 11, 2009 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Tsu Jae King Liu

The research interests of Dr. Sedky focus on low thermal budget techniques for integrating MEMS monolithically with driving and sensing electronics, in addition to the design, modeling, fabrication and characterization of MEMS/NEMS devices. He holds six patents and authored or coauthored over sixty international publications and a book chapter in the field of design, fabrication and monolithic integration of MEMS with...