Engineering Research Equipment: Piezoelectric Sensor Fabrication Equipment

9622501 Vetelino这项提案要求国家科学基金会分担购买压电传感器制造设备的成本，这对缅因州大学(UM)的传感器工作至关重要，对其他UM研究人员和行业来说也是一笔宝贵的资产。压电传感器的设计、制造和测试是密歇根大学的一个活跃领域。这些传感器灵敏、便携、体积小、价格低廉，可以检测零件中的气体，如声表面波(SAW)气体微型传感器、神经网络在SAW气体传感器中的应用、声学平板模式生物传感器、声表面波腐蚀传感器、声发射传感器、尼龙制造传感器和汽车油质量传感器。拟议的制造设备对于NSF资助的大型多用户薄膜合成和处理设施以及NSF资助的将传感器集成到本科生和研究生电气工程(EE)课程中的项目也至关重要。由于目前的制造设备不可靠，传感器的研究已经放缓，出现了探索新研究方向的障碍，并且将传感器纳入课程一直很困难。***

9622501 Vetelino This proposal requests that NSF cost share in the purchase of piezoelectric sensor fabrication equipment which will be vital to the University of Maine (UM) sensor efforts and a valuable asset to other UM researchers and industry. The design, fabrication and testing of piezoelectric sensors is an active area at the UM. These sensors, which are sensitive, portable, small, and inexpensive, can detect gases in the parts per (SAW) gas microsensor, the application of neural networks to SAW gas sensors, an acoustic plate mode biosensor, a SAW corrosion sensor, an acoustic emission sensor, a sensor for making nylon and an automotive oil quality sensor. The proposed fabrication equipment is also critical to a large NSF-funded multi-user thin film synthesis and processing facility and an NSF funded program which integrates sensors into the undergraduate and graduate electrical engineering (EE) curricula. Since the present fabrication equipment is unreliable, sensor research has been slowed, impediments to exploring new research directions have arisen, and the integration of sensors into the curriculum has been difficult. ***