State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Institute of Precision Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Prof. Bian Tian
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Institute of Precision Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Accurate temperature measurements can efficiently solve numerous critical problems and provide key information. Herein, a flexible micro-three-dimensional sensor, with a combination of platinum and indium oxide to form thermocouples, is designed and fabricated by a microfabrication process to achieve in situ real-time temperature measurements. The stability and reliability of the sensor are greatly improved by optimizing the process parameters, structural design, and preparation methods. A novel micro-three-dimensional structure with better malleability is designed, which also takes advantage of the fast response of a two-dimensional thin film. The as-obtained flexible temperature sensor with excellent stability and reliability is expected to greatly contribute to the development of essential components in various emerging research fields, including bio-robot and healthcare systems. The model of the application sensor in a mask is further proposed and designed to realize the collection of health information, reducing the number of deaths caused by the lack of timely detection and treatment of patients.
29 November 2022 in International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing
Flexible temperature sensors have been extensively investigated due to their prospect of wide application in various flexible electronic products. However, most of the current flexible temperature sensors only work well in a narrow temperature range, with their application at high or low temperatures still being a big challenge. This work proposes a flexible thermocouple temperature sensor based on aerogel blanket substrate, the temperature-sensitive layer of which uses the screen-printing technology to prepare indium oxide and indium tin oxide. It has good temperature sensitivity, with the test sensitivity reaching 226.7μV °C−1. Most importantly, it can work in a wide temperature range, from extremely low temperatures down to liquid nitrogen temperature to high temperatures up to 1200 °C, which is difficult to be achieved by other existing flexible temperature sensors. This temperature sensor has huge application potential in biomedicine, aerospace and other fields.
This paper reports the design and analysis of a type of piezoresistive pressure sensor for micro-pressure measurement with a cross beam-membrane (CBM) structure. This new silicon substrate-based sensor has the advantages of a miniature structure and high sensitivity, linearity, and accuracy. By using the finite element method to analyze the stress distribution of the new structure and subsequently deducing the relationship between structural dimensions and mechanical performances, equations used to determine the CBM structure are established. Based on the CBM model and our stress and deflections equations, sensor fabrication is then performed on the silicon wafer via a process including anisotropy chemical etching and inductively coupled plasma. The structure's merits, such as linearity, sensitivity, and repeatability, have been investigated under the pressure of 5 kPa. Our results show that the precision of these equations is ±0.19%FS, indicating that this new small-sized structure offers easy preparation, high sensitivity, and high accuracy for micro-pressure measurement.
In order to meet the requirements of cable fault detection, a new structure of piezoelectric accelerometer was designed and analyzed in detail. The structure was composed of a seismic mass, two sensitive beams, and two added beams. Then, simulations including the maximum stress, natural frequency, and output voltage were carried out. Moreover, comparisons with traditional structures of piezoelectric accelerometer were made. To verify which vibration mode is the dominant one on the acceleration and the space between the mass and glass, mode analysis and deflection analysis were carried out. Fabricated on an n-type single crystal silicon wafer, the sensor chips were wire-bonged to printed circuit boards (PCBs) and simply packaged for experiments. Finally, a vibration test was conducted. The results show that the proposed piezoelectric accelerometer has high sensitivity, low resonance frequency, and low transverse effect.
An In2O3/ITO thin film thermocouple was prepared via screen printing. Glass additives were added to improve the sintering process and to increase the density of the In2O3/ITO films. The surface and cross-sectional images indicate that both the grain size and densification of the ITO and In2O3 films increased with the increase in annealing time. The thermoelectric voltage of the In2O3/ITO thermocouple was 53.5 mV at 1270 °C at the hot junction. The average Seebeck coefficient of the thermocouple was calculated as 44.5 μV/°C. The drift rate of the In2O3/ITO thermocouple was 5.44 °C/h at a measuring time of 10 h at 1270 °C.
17 March 2021 in IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement
A new fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor that can measure temperature, vibration, and strain is proposed in this article. The structure of this sensor is designed and optimized via theoretical analysis and the finite-element method (FEM). With an innovatively designed L-shaped cantilever (LSC), this designed sensor can better balance the vibration measurement sensitivity and the resonant frequency. The strain measurement structure is designed as a hollow square so that the reaction force of the sensor for the measured object is only 2.76×10 -3 N/ με, which ensures that the strain distribution of the measured object is not affected. The designed sensor can significantly amplify the measured strain with a measurement sensitivity (5.44 pm/ με) that is four times greater than that of the bare FBGs. This article uses single-mode FBGs inscribed by a femtosecond laser (FS-FBG) to make the sensors, and the sensing performance is analyzed. The results show that this FS-FBG-based sensor can withstand temperatures up to 1100 °C.