Publications

Micromachined Plastic Millimeter-wave Radar Components

Firas Sammoura
Liwei Lin
Albert P. Pisano
Andrew Neureuther
2006
This research aims to develop plastic millimeter-wave components, including waveguides, tunable filters, phase shifters and antennas, toward the low-cost, batch fabrication for integrated systems for applications such as all-weather automotive and airplane landing radars. The key micromachining processes developed in this work include micro hot embossing, electroplating, polishing and bonding and as a proof of concept demonstration, micro injection molding of...

Integrated MEMS Tuning Fork Oscillators for Sensor Applications

Trey Roessig
Albert P. Pisano
Kameshwar Poolla
Roger T. Howe
1998
In this work, issues involved in the design resonant sensors in a surface- micromachined fabrication technology are investigated. The goal of this work is to describe the important considerations in each portion of the sensor design, including the ...

Surface Micromachined Resonant Force Transducers

Trey Roessig
Albert P. Pisano
George C. Johnson
Lisa Pruitt
1995

This report covers a transduction scheme using surface micromachined tuning forks to measure small forces. This resonant sensing is done by applying an axial force to the tuning fork and measuring the resulting shift in natural frequency. The analysis of the tuning forks is carried ...

Micro Accelerometer Design with Digital Feedback Control

Mark Lemkin
David M. Auslander
Bernhard E. Boser
Albert P. Pisano
1997
In this work, design of capacitive accelerometers with CMOS electronics is investigated. The goal of this investigation is to form accurate behavioral models at three different levels of abstraction: system, electrical, and mechanical. Analysis of these models permits a deeper understanding of both accelerometer design and design trade-offs. The results of this work are used to obtain an accurate prediction of accelerometer performance. At the system level, simultaneous force-balancing and analog-to-digital...

High-Speed Modulation of Optical Injection-Locked Semiconductor Lasers

Erwin Lau
Ming C. Wu
Constance Chang-Hasnain
Xiang Zhang
2006
Semiconductor lasers are an integral part of high-speed telecommunications. The push for higher modulation frequencies, thereby allowing greater data rates, has motivated the scientific community for several decades. However, the maximum speed of directly-modulated semiconductor lasers has plateaued as the field reaches a mature state. Recently, optical injection locking has been proven to enhance the bandwidth and resonance frequency of directly...

Lab-on-a-Chip Mechanical and Optical Components

Nikolas Chronis
Luke P. Lee
Lisa Pruitt
Albert P. Pisano
Richard S. Muller
2004
The present work aims to provide new tools for the manipulation and detection of biological samples. They can be envisioned as individual components of an integrated, lab-on-a-chip system. A novel SU-8 microgripper is introduced for the manipulation of single cells or other biological species in solution with minimal undesired interactions. The electrothermally activated polymer gripper consists of two SU-8 ‘hot-and-cold-arm’ actuators that are fabricated in a two-mask...

Capacitive Power Transfer

Mitchell Kline
Bernhard E. Boser
Seth R. Sanders
2011

The simplicity and low cost of capacitive interfaces makes them very attractivefor wireless charging stations and galvanically isolated power supplies. Major benefits include low electromagnetic radiation and the amenability of combined power and data transfer over the same interface.

We present a capacitive power transfer circuit using series resonance that enables efficient high frequency, moderate voltage operation through soft-switching. An included analysis predicts fundamental limitations on...

Micromachined Dual Input Axis Rate Gyroscope

Thor Juneau
Albert P. Pisano
Roger T. Howe
Roberto Horowitz
1997
The need for inexpensive yet reliable angular rate senors in fields ranging from automotive to consumer electronics has motivated prolific micromachined rate gyroscope research. The vast majority of research has focused on single input axis rate gyroscopes based upon either translational resonance, such as tuning forks, or...

Design, Theory, and Applications of Integrable Carrier-Domain Magnetometers

Juan Goicolea
Richard S. Muller
1986
This thesis describes an integrated silicon vertical geometry carrier-domain magnetometer fabricated on a silicon substrate using a commercial linear bipolar process. It also describes several chips in which CDMs are used in conjunction with other cir...

Polycrystalline Silicon-Germanium Films for Integrated Microsystems

Andrea Franke
Tsu-Jae King
Roger T. Howe
Timothy Sands
2000

Poly cystalline silicon (poly-Si) and silicon dioxide (SiO2) are the standard strucutral and sacrifical materials in surface micromachines MEMS. Polycrystalline silicon-germanium (poly-SiGe) can be deposited in a standard LPCVD furnace at much lower temperatures (less than or equal to 450degC) than poly-Si. This allows integration of poly-SiGe MEMS after completion of a CMOS process with Al or Cu interconnects. Modularly integrating MEMS onto wafers with standard CMOS circuits reduces parasitics, increases packaging simplicity and reliability, could lower processing cost, allows for...