Richard S. Muller (Advisor)

Oriented zinc-oxide layers have been combined with NMOS planar technology and silicon micromachining to produce integrated sensors empolying the pyroelectric effect in thin deposited films. Several fully integrated sensors have been designed and fabricated to detect differential temperatures as small as 18uK (and up to 2K) that arise in response to physical or chemical variables being sensed. The following fully-integrated pyroelectric sensors have been designed, fabricated, and tested: infrared detector array, gas-flow sensor, and chemical-reaction sensor. These sensors have been...

Numerous analytical instruments require a sensor to detect small quantities of electric charge. The techniques of scanning tunneling microscopy and ballistic electron emission microscopy require tiny currents to be sensed, on the order of a few picoamperes. In a mass spectrometer, the analysis of a sample requires a measurement of the current resulting from ions passing through a mass filter. In a technique known as chargedetection mass spectrometry, used to measure the mass of large molecules such as DNA molecules or virus particles, the resolution of the mass determination is limited in...

Deformable mirrors (DM) shape the wavefront of an optical beam in adaptive-optics (AO) systems. The ability to manipulate wavefront phase quickly allows for real-time correction of aberrated wavefronts. We investigate the design of a micromachined, segmented, highstroke deformable-mirror array for AO.

To achieve large mirror stroke, polysilicon-nickel bimorph flexures are designed to quiescently elevate surface-micromachined mirror platforms roughly 20 µm above underlying electrodes as a result of tuned residual stresses in the bimorph materials. We control stress in the...