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

BPN851: Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers with Corrugated Diaphragms Using Surface Micromachining

Guo-Lun Luo
2019

A key metric of micromachined ultrasonic transducer (MUT) performance is the volume velocity, which determines the transmitting output pressure. Here, we present a study to demonstrate corrugated-diaphragm piezoelectric MUTs (PMUTs) which have up to 3.2X higher volume velocity than conventional PMUTs of the same area. The PMUTs are manufactured by a surface-micromachining process forming a high fill-factor (80%) array, and corrugations can be added without any additional masks or process...

BPN770: Chemical Sensitive Field Effect Transistor (CS-FET)

Niharika Gupta
2019

Silicon IC-based fabrication processing will be used to develop novel compact gas sensors that, unlike current sensors, will operate at room temperature, consume minimal power, exhibit superior sensitivity, provide chemical selectivity and multi-gas detection capabilities, and offer the prospect of very low-cost replication for broad-area deployment. We name this device structure “Chemical Sensitive FET” or “CS-FET.” The operation of the CS-FET involves transistor parametric differentiation under...

BPN923: Rapid Isolation and Identification of Drug-Resistant Pathogens with Smartphone-Based Optical System (SOS)

Wonseok Kim
Youngseop Lee
2020

The rapid isolation and identification of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens are critically demanded in global healthcare and precision medicine. However, time-consuming, culture-based methods are currently used for the detection of pathogens since there is no rapid precision molecular diagnostic platform. In this work, we develop a rapid isolation and identification of drug-resistant pathogens with smartphone-based optical system (SOS). For the pathogens detection from human blood sample, we precipitate RBCs with pre-mixed dextran for 10...

BPN921: Passivating Contacts for Silicon Solar Cells by Lewis Acids and Bases

Wenbo Ji
2020

A salient characteristic of solar cells is their ability to subject photo-generated electrons and holes to pathways of asymmetrical conductivity - assisting them toward their respective contacts. All commercially available crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells achieve this by making use of doping in either near-surface regions or overlying silicon-based films. Despite being commonplace, this approach is hindered by several optoelectronic losses and technological limitations specific to doped silicon. Our previous work on low/high work function dopant-free...

BPN896: Drug Monitoring with Wearable Sweat Sensors

Li-Chia Tai
2020

Drug monitoring plays crucial roles in doping control and precision medicine. It helps physicians tailor drug dosage for optimal benefits, track patients’ compliance to prescriptions and understand the complex pharmacokinetics of drugs. Conventional drug tests rely on invasive blood draws. While urine and sweat are attractive alternative biofluids, the state-of-the-art methods require separate sample collection and processing steps and fail to provide real-time information. Here we present a wearable platform for drug monitoring. Both stationary iontophoretic induction...

BPN938: Airborne Particulate Matter Monitor with Species Imaging

Richard M. White
2020

The Particulate Matter Monitor that we've been researching determines the concentration of particles in units of mass of particles collected (in micrograms) divided by the volume of air collected (in cubic meters). The goal of this project is to obtain information also about the composition of those particles.

Project end date: 08/12/20

BPN950: Self-Righting for Micro Robots

Alexander Alvara
Hani Gomez
2020

In developing micro-robots for exploration in non-uniform terrain, it is often the case that robots fall over. This work seeks to provide a solution in the self-righting of autonomous micro- robots to overturn a 1cc, 1 gram cube microrobot with regular octahedral symmetry that has fallen on either of its four sides and overturning said microrobot once upside down. Here, a slider 3- bar linkage is used in conjunction with MEMS inchworm motors, capable of producing approx 15uN force output, to sweep the lifting arm and push the cube microrobot to be...

BPN801: Electromagnetic Energy Harvester for Atmospheric and Power-System Sensors on Overhead Power Distribution Lines

Zhiwei Wu
2020

This project is developing inexpensive, easily-installed energy harvesters for mounting on overhead and underground power distribution lines to supply power to sensors that will evaluate and report on the functioning of the power system, and to power co-located environmental sensors, such as particulate matter monitors and toxic gas sensors, that can transmit measurements to nearby personal cell phones and long term storage.

Project end date: 08/12/20

BPN944: Wearable Sweat Sensors for Nutrients Monitoring

Hnin Yin Yin Nyein
Jiangqi Zhao
2020

Nutrients are essential parts of our lives for normal growth and development of body functions. An average person’s intake of nutrients per day is not enough to sustain body needs and thrive the development. To achieve optimal nutrient balance for development, especially in children, it is important to keep track of nutrients level in our body. Sweat, which contains many chemicals including vitamins and amino acids, is an attractive biofluid for routine non- invasive assessment of nutrients level. In this work, we developed a wearable sensor that can accurately provide...

BPN366: SiC TAPS: Pressure Sensor Design and Optimization

Benjamin Cheng
2010

The goal of this work is to deliver a sensor module with MEMS-based silicon carbide TAPS sensors integrated with SiC interface circuits for extreme harsh environment applications.

Project end date: 08/13/10