Evaluation of Fermi Read-out of the ATLAS Tilecal Prototype

Prototypes of the \fermi{} system have been used to read out a prototype of the \atlas{} hadron calorimeter in a beam test at the CERN SPS. The \fermi{} read-out system, using a compressor and a 40 MHz sampling ADC, is compared to a standard charge integrating read-out by measuring the energy resolution of the calorimeter separately with the two systems on the same events. Signal processing techniques have been designed to optimize the treatment of \fermi{} data. The resulting energy resolution is better than the one obtained with the standard read-out

Large area piezoelectric impact sensors

Printed electronics is an active area of research which enables production of electrical devices on various substrates. The use of highly insulating materials and the employment of dielectric phenomena based on the piezo- and pyroelectric effect in polar insulators promise large area sensors useful in protection sensor systems to save pedestrians. In this paper we propose a car safety system based on printed piezo- and pyroelectric sensors. Their use in pedestrian saving systems is exemplified by a toy-car-demonstrator. The sensors are based on ferroelectric polymers, printed on flexible PET substrates. The piezoelectric coefficients of the printed ferroelectric polymer film are typically 25 pC/N, sufficient for impact detection in car crash situations. The sensor speed is very fast, enabling efficient protection mechanisms to safe the life of pedestrians. The simple and potentially low cost fabrication is advantageous in comparison to systems currently available on the market

Fully printed, flexible, large area organic optothermal sensors for human-machine-interfaces

AbstractPyroelectric sensors presented in this work are based on polymers from the PVDF family which are comprised of a piezo- and/or pyroelectric polymer thin film capacitor integrated with either high performance organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) or electrochemical transistors (ECTs) acting as impedance converters, signal amplifiers and conditioners.For flexible integration with diverse electronic devices, large area processes such as screen printing applicable for industrial partners have been used for the fabrication of the sensors and ECT’s. With respect to the intended purpose for detection of human body radiation the absorbance of the impinging IR-light is dramatically increased by the application of printed carbon/Pedot topelectrodes, hence meeting the requirements for low-cost large area processibility.Here we present good working integrated sensor devices based on two components, being an organic thin film transitor with a high-k-nanocomposite gate dielectric or a fully printed electrochemical transistor and a PVDF-copolymer based sensor

All printed touchless human-machine interface based on only five functional materials

We demonstrate the printing of a complex smart integrated system using only five functional inks: the fluoropolymer P(VDF:TrFE) (Poly(vinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene) sensor ink, the conductive polymer PEDOT:PSS (poly(3,4 ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonic acid) ink, a conductive carbon paste, a polymeric electrolyte and SU8 for separation. The result is a touchless human-machine interface, including piezo- and pyroelectric sensor pixels (sensitive to pressure changes and impinging infrared light), transistors for impedance matching and signal conditioning, and an electrochromic display. Applications may not only emerge in human-machine interfaces, but also in transient temperature or pressure sensing used in safety technology, in artificial skins and in disposable sensor labels