Publications

Low-Power, High-Stability FM MEMS Gyroscopes

Yu-Ching Yeh
Bernhard E. Boser
Liwei Lin
2016

With the advantages of small size and low cost, MEMS gyroscopes have been used in a variety of applications such as image stabilization, gaming control, and motion tracking for mobile or wearable devices. One potential application for MEMS gyroscopes is indoor navigation. This minimizes the infrastructure requirements compared with other approaches with electromagnetic reference beacons. However, recent consumer MEMS gyroscopes are still orders away from achieving navigation grade performance.

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Lorentz Force Magnetic Sensors

Mo Li
David A. Horsley
Stephen O’Driscoll
Rajeevan Amirtharajah
2015
This dissertation describes micromechanical Lorentz force magnetic sensors for electronic compass applications. Recent development in commercially available MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes has been focused on the reduction of size, power consumption and cost, which has led to the integration of a 3axis accelerometer and 3axis gyroscope on the same chip, known as the 6axis combo sensor. The growing market of...

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...

Light-induced Electrokinetics: A path to a versatile micro total analysis system

Justin K. Valley
Ming C. Wu
Michel M. Maharbiz
Amy E. Herr
2011

The micro total analysis system (μTAS) has seen great interest and advances since its definition over two decades ago. By harnessing the fabrication tools of the semiconductor industry and exploiting the unique physical phenomena that dominate at the micro- to nano-scale,these devices aim to address applications ranging from point-of-care diagnostics to pharmaceutical development. A truly versatile μTAS technology platform will enable reconfigurable, parallel, and high...

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 Surface Micromachined Frame Microgyroscopes

Moorthi Palaniapan
Roger T. Howe
Albert P. Pisano
Roberto Horowitz
2002
In this work, two different integrated surface-micromachined z-axis vibratory rate gyroscopes are evaluated. Frame microgyroscopes using 'Inside Sense Outside Drive' suspension design were proposed and compared with 'Inside Drive Outside Sense' design. In the 'Inside Sense Outside Drive' frame design, the outer mass (...

Incremental Network Programming for Wireless Sensors

Jaein Jeong
Kristofer S.J. Pister
David E. Culler
2004

One problem of the current network programming implementation of TinyOS is that it takes much longer than the traditional in-system programming due to the slow radio connection. We extended the network programming implementation of TinyOS 1.1 release so that it can reduce the programming time using the program code history. The host program generates the difference of the two program images using the Rsync algorithm and it sends the difference to the sensor nodes as script messages. The sense nodes rebuild the program image based on the previous program version and the recived script...

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...