Engineering Research Equipment: Piezoelectric Sensor Fabrication Equipment

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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. ***