Publications

Solid State Electrochemical Sensors for Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) Detection in Lean Exhaust Gases

Jonathan Michael Rheaume
Albert P. Pisano
J. Karl Hedrick
Seth Sanders
2010
Solid state electrochemical sensors that measure nitrogen oxides (NOx) in lean exhaust have been investigated in order to help meet future on-board diagnostic (OBD) regulations for diesel vehicles. This impedancemetric detection technology consists of a planar, single cell sensor design with various sensing electrode materials and yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) as the electrolyte. No reference to ambient air is required. An impedance analysis...

Silicon Photonic Devices for Optoelectronic Integrated Circuits

Ming-Chun Tien
Ming C. Wu
Constance Chang-Hasnain
Xiang Zhang
2009
Electronic and photonic integrated circuits use optics to overcome bottlenecks of microelectronics in bandwidth and power consumption. Silicon photonic devices such as optical modulators, filters, switches, and photodetectors have being developed for integration with electronics based on existing complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits. An important building block of photonic devices is the optical ...

Stability, Sensitivity, and Selectivity of Graphene FET-based Gas Sensors

Takeshi Hayasaka
Liwei Lin
Dorian Liepmann
Ana Claudia Arias
2019
Miniaturized gas sensors are expected to witness a high demand in the next decade invarious industry fields due to the small foot print, low power consumption, and low manufacturing cost. To date, various miniaturized gas sensors have been proposed by combining key sensing principles/materials and micro/nano fabrication technologies. Among those platforms, graphene-based gas sensor is especially promising due the unique features: gas sensing capability at room temperature, unique electrical properties, and the truly two...

Sensing and Harvesting Pressure Fluctuations in Harsh Environments

Levent Beker
Liwei Lin
Albert P. Pisano
Tarek Zohdi
Rikky Muller
2017

Pressure is one of the most frequent and important parameters utilized in many applications to provide critical information about the operation of a system as well as a potential mechanical energy source. Among various pressure-related devices, very few function in harsh environment which includes high temperature, high pressure...

Structured and Parameter-Dependent Eigensolvers for Simulation-Based Design of Resonant MEMS

David Samuel Bindel
James W. Demmel
Sanjay Govindje
William M. Kahan
Robert L. Taylor
2006
This dissertation is about computational tools to aid in the design of resonant Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), tiny vibrating devices built by processeslike those used to make integrated circuits. Vibrating MEMS are used in accelerom-eters and gyroscopes, in sensors to detect chemicals and to measure pressure, and in communication devices such as cell phones. MEMS engineers can use computersimulations to design devices using fewer costly and time-consuming prototype tests, but these simulations are...

Simulation of In Situ Solid State Electrochemical Sensor for Improved Diagnostics and Control of Lean Engines

Jonathan Michael Rheaume
Albert P. Pisano
Alice M. Agogino
2008
Internal combustion engines generally operate as open loop feedback systems. Present engine control strategy involves sensors that simply provide data for comparison with an “engine map” of tables in engine control computers. Closing the feedback loop in real time and for individual cylinders would allow improved engine control, resulting in reduced pollution and increased efficiency. This treatise presents a simulation of the output of a solid state sensor...

Serial Assembly of Microstructures

Subramaniam Venkatraman
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Carlo H. Séquin
2006

This thesis presents serial pick and place assembly of microstructures, fabricated in a simple single mask SOI process, as an approach for the manufacture of complicated microstructures. Two techniques for pick and place microassembly and design of microparts which can be used with either of these two assembly approaches are presented. The techniques are designed to be simple and robust so that they can be extended to an automated assembly-...

SPICE Analysis of a Micro Gyro and Mixed Analog-Digital Sensor Interface Circuit

Amit Burstein
Chand R. Viswanathan
Kristofer S.J. Pister
William H. Kaiser
1994
MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) is a fast growing field both in the commercial companies and in the universities. Different design tools such as VEM and MAGIC are available for the design of both surface and bulk micromachining...

Silicon and Silicon Carbide Nanowires: Synthesis, Characterization, Modification, and Application as Micro-Supercapacitor Electrodes

John Paul Alper
Roya Maboudian
David B. Graves
Liwei Lin
2014
For applications in mobile and remote sensing platforms, microsupercapacitors are attractive energy storage devices due to their robust lifetimes and high specific power capacity. Utilization of green electrolytes in these devices reduces environmental impact and simplifies packaging by avoiding the stringent oxygen and moisture free conditions required for organic and ionic liquid based electrolytes. Porous silicon...

Scanning Blazed Gratings

Kristine Marie Rosfjord
Kam Y. Lau
Richard S. Muller
2001
Diffraction gratings are highly important and widely used in many optical instruments and systems. In the field of spectroscopy, gratings are the enabling devices for the monochromators and spectrometers used in fields ranging from chemistry and biology to optoelectronics and telecommunications. Within the field of...