PROTOTYPING AT UCI

The UCI Technology Outreach Program provides product prototyping capabilities for industry. To perform this function, many of the resources of the School of Engineering are available. Prototype design, fabrication and test can be done in the best manner for a particular client. Work can be performed collaboratively or solely by UCI personnel. UCI personnel can include faculty, professional staff and/or students. A great deal of design and simulation software and sophisticated laboratories are available to create these prototypes. This provides a method to demonstrate, at low cost, unique design, device or material concepts.

Some examples of fabricated prototypes include:

Microfluidics
(1) Microflow Studies
A recently awarded project is a joint project with a Los Alamitos company to investigate microfluidics for use in bio-medical and microcooler device applications. The project will investigate the flow of fluids in small channels in MEMS devices. Important issues are implications of non-Newtonian flow (particularly important for biological material), measurements of the flow of very small amounts of material, and the effects of channel roughness on flow.

Devices 44K image for this project have been micromachined in the Nanofabrication Technology Laboratory and are assembled using anodic bonding.

(2) Biomedical MEMS
An optical flow cell 22 K byte image is shown in the photomicrograph. This optical flow dell device was demonstrated at the request of an instrument maker to be used in the inspection of biological fluids. Biological fluids, diluted with a solvent, are injected into the narrow end of the flow channel and exits at the wide end. A microscope with a CCD camera images the fluids in the transparent area near the wide exit port.

Automotive Projects
(1) Anemometer
This device 19K byte image was developed to measure airflow in an automobile engine. The device was tested over a range of flow ranges and operating temperatures. The anemometer was fabricated with bulk micromachining on a low stress silicon nitride membrane. Two thin film devices were built on the membrane: one for the flow measurement and the second for temperature measurement (for temperature compensation of the sensor). The device was fabricated in the Nanofabrication Technology Laboratory.

(2)Binary Concentration Mass Flow Sensor
This novel device 38 K byte image has been demonstrated for automotive applications. It was designed to measure the concentration of the principal two components in a flowing gas mixture. The device has been fabricated in two versions, one with surface micromachining and a second with bulk micromachining. The device operates by heating the gas using a heater strip on the chip and sensing the temperature of the downstram gas with several sequential thin film sensors. Gas components can be determined by computing the gas conductivity from the sequential temperature measurements. This technique is expected to be useful for measuring the composition of natural gas for alternate fuel vehicles (and allow optimum combustion) or alternately the fuel/air ratio for stoichometric combustion. Breadboard electronics was constructed for computation and closed-loop control.

Semiconductor Projects
(1)Low Cost Ridge Waveguide Laser (8K)
(2)Chemical Sensor (49K)

(3)Semiconductor Resistivity Meter

(4)Microsprings
The design and demonstration of microsprings was sponsored by a Costa Mesa company. Devices 57K byte image were fabricated in the Nanofabrication Technology Laboratory. The image shows an array of test devices with different spring designs. The length of these springs is approximately 100 microns. The interest of the sponsor is the development of a new class of microactuators and sensors that can be used with micro-optics applications. This project was initiated as a SBIR project. Microsprings have been fabricated using both surface and bulk micromachining.

(5) Properties of Thin Integrated Circuits There is considerable interest in very thin integrated circuits for smart cards, smart shipping labels, and wearable computers. The usual integrated circuits are 500 to 1000 micrometers in thickness. We are investigating the properties of semiconductor and MEMS devices with substrate thicknesses down to 10 micrometers or less. Interesting phenomena occurring at these smaller thickness include threshold shifts due to charge on the back of the wafer, changing bandgap with chip flexing and piezoresistive effects with chip flexing. These thin chips are very flexible but also brittle. A tester has been assembled to examine the mechanical properties of thinned die. The photomicrograph 228K byte image shows a fracture that begins along a polishing groove on the back of the wafer. The fracture quickly transitions to the lower fracture strength crystal axes.

Combustion Projects

(1)Holographic Velocity Sensor
(2)Sheer Stress Sensors
(3)Mixers for Gas Turbine Combustors
(4)Controllable Premixer (100K image). NOx production in gas turbine engines is expected to depend upon the spatial and temporal unmixedness of the fuel and air. The controllable premixer is a device that can be used to vary the spatial distribution of the fuel and hence the unmixedness by providing a means to control the fuel flow rate through each of the tubes that are located at the nodes of the grid.
(5)Image B(33K)
(6)Premixer with Flashback Protection (27K image). Unmixed fuel and air flows from the right to the left and passes through the holes shown on the outer surface of the hollow cone and through corresponding holes on the inner surface. The impinging high speed opposing jets from the holes on the inside of the cone promote rapid mixing at very small scales which leads to a uniform mixture of fuel and air. The jet velocity is higher than the flame speed which prevents flash back.

Links to some Engineering Laboratories:

Microtechnology and Manufacturing Laboratory
Fluid Mechanics Laboratory


The UCI Technology Outreach Program provides support to businesses and entrepreneurs including product prototyping, education courses, measurement services, and analysis.

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