CHEMICAL SENSING USING MEMS

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CHEMICAL SENSING USING MEMS
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Micro Electro Mechanical Systems

• Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) is the
  integration of mechanical elements, sensors,
  actuators, and electronics on a common silicon
  substrate through micro-fabrication technology.
• Electronics are fabricated using integrated
  circuit (IC) process and the micromechanical
  components are fabricated using compatible
  micromachining.
• Microelectronic integrated circuits can be
  thought of as the "brains" of a system.

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Applications

• Biotechnology
• -- Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) microsystems
  for DNA amplification and identification.
• -- Micromachined Scanning Tunneling Microscopes
  (STMs).
• -- Biochips for detection of hazardous chemical
  and biological agents.
• Communications
• -- Improved components (tunable capacitor,
  inductor) will significantly improve
  communication system.
• -- Also total circuit area, power consumption
  and cost can be reduced.
• Accelerometers
• -- MEMS accelerometers are quickly replacing
  conventional accelerometers for crash air-bag
  deployment systems in automobiles.
• -- MEMS accelerometers are small, more efficient
  and cheap.

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Robust Exhaust Gas Sensing System

• MEMs based chemical sensor system for monitoring
  key exhaust species. (NOx, CO, O2 ).
• Applications
• --NOx measurements of diesel engines.
• -- Jet engine emissions monitoring for NASA.
• -- U.S. Air Force for performance measurements
  (thrust and combustion efficiency) in exhaust of
  vectored jet engines with afterburner.
• -- Potential application to indoor air quality
  monitoring in buildings and vehicles

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MEMS Tongue

• The researchers combined MEMS with budding
  chemical-engineering technologies to create the
  tongue.
• The artificial taste buds are mounted on a
  silicon chip using MEMS technology, with a CCD
  imager feeding data to a pattern-recognition
  learning algorithm.
• They used accelerometer MEMS technique to make an
  array of miniature test tubes, where they can
  identify substance in real time.
• Substance can be identified with tiny detection
  beads that change color.
• Along with that they use CCD camera to track the
  bead's color, along with pattern-recognition
  software to reveal the elements of the substance
  under test based on the color changes in the
  beads.

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Helpful for my Research

• We are measuring the ambient air during
  thunderstorm, but the apparatus we using is
  pretty big. It will be very useful if we have a
  small apparatus and can put it in a airplane and
  fly it near the storm.
• We also measuring human breath, we get breath
  samples from different Hospitals. Some times the
  breath sample are too old and are of no use. So
  again if we can go there and measure that, and
  this can be done if apparatus is small.