Thermal design issues and performance of microcalorimeter arrays at sub-Kelvin temperatures

We have produced 5/spl times/5 pixel arrays of microcalorimeters using bulk micromachining. Analysis of our data provides the thermal conductivity parameters of Si/sub x/N/sub y/ 1 /spl mu/m thick membranes at 100 mK. Moreover we find that the thermal transport at 100 mK in Si beams, with dimensions 1.25 mm /spl times/ 0.35mm /spl times/ 35/spl mu/m (length /spl times/ height /spl times/ width) is dominated by ballistic phonons with a mean free path of 110 /spl mu/m. These thermal parameters can be used for modelling future 32 /spl times/ 32 pixel arrays. In addition we operated three pixels in a 5 /spl times/ 5 array of microcalorimeters and find that the pixel to pixel reproducibility is very good. When used as an X-ray microcalorimeter individual pixels have a thermal decay time of 200 /spl mu/s is and their energy resolution is between 6 and 7 eV for 5.89 keV X-ray photons

MEMS based hair flow-sensors as model systems for acoustic perception studies

Arrays of MEMS fabricated flow sensors inspired by the acoustic flow-sensitive hairs found on the cerci of crickets, have been designed, fabricated and characterized. The hairs consist of up to 1 mm long SU-8 structures mounted on suspended membranes with normal translational and rotational degrees of freedom. Electrodes on the membrane and on the substrate form variable capacitors allowing for capacitive read-out. Capacitance versus voltage, frequency dependency and directional sensitivity measurements have been successfully carried out on fabricated sensor arrays, showing the viability of the concept. The sensors form a model-system allowing for investigations on sensory acoustics by their arrayed nature, their adaptivity via electrostatic interaction (frequency tuning and parametric amplifica- tion) and their susceptibility to noise (stochastic resonance

Micromachined two dimensional resistor arrays for determination of gas parameters

A resistive sensor array is presented for two dimensional temperature distribution measurements in a micromachined flow channel. This allows simultaneous measurement of flow velocity and fluid parameters, like thermal conductivity, diffusion coefficient and viscosity. More general advantages of measuring temperature distributions are the inherent compensation of heat losses to the support and the insensitivity to variations in the temperature coefficient of resistance

Distributed thermal micro sensors for fluid flow

In this thesis thermal sensor-actuator structures are proposed for measuring the parameters pressure p, dynamic viscosity μ, thermal conductivity , specific heat c, density and the fluid velocity v. In this chapter examples will be given of the added value of many identical simple elements and the added value of several structures with an optimized geometry for the determination of a parameter. Placing the structures in different environments can fulfill different tasks. A short description of thermal flow sensors, pressure sensors and thermal conductivity sensors will be given

2,2'-(Isopropylimino)diethanol

This paper presents the fabrication and first performance characteristics of electrostatically driven axial-gap polysilicon wobble motors. The fabrication is based on a four mask process using polysilicon surface-micromachining techniques. Three twelve-stator-pole wobble motor designs have been realized with rotor radii of 50 and 100 μm. Motors have been operated successfully at driving voltages as low as 6 V at speeds up to 150 rpm. The motor performance is characterized by gear ratio measurements and measuring starting and stopping voltages. Motor lifetimes of several million wobble cycles, comparable to operating times of several hours, have been obtaine