The purpose of this study was to design a passive nanostrain Radio Frequency strain sensor that helps to monitor the strain changes caused by traffic in motion on bridges. The phase sensitive interrogation method was applied meaning that the strain changes will be measured by the cavity sensor phase shift. The results revealed that the RF strain sensor could achieve a resolution of a few nanostrain. The principle conclusion was that the designed RF strain sensor has nanostrain sensitivity. Coaxial-Cylinder sensor sensitivity was 8 nanostrain. Cylinder volume resonant cavity sensor sensitivity was 8 nanostrain for high Q and 4 nanostrain for low Q. (BW = 160Hz) These sensitivities were somewhat larger than theoretical estimates due to noise from sauces other than the thermal noise used in the theoretical estimation. Therefore sensors will be useful for Structural Health Monitoring applications.

No description available.

A semiconductor based gas sensor was developed by integrating a gas sensitive polymer with a floating-gate metal-oxide-semiconductor (FGMOS). The integration of the gas sensitive polymer with a semiconductor device enables the design of a large sensor array in a single chip for electronic sensing application. A new FGMOS structure was designed to reduce the number of post-processing steps during electrochemical polymer deposition. In this new design, the top metal layer of a standard CMOS process was used as an extended sensor pad which was connected to the floating gate. A sensor chip was designed using a standard 0.35 µm CMOS process. A polymer film was selectively deposited on the top metal layer (sensor pad) of a FGMOS using two post processing steps. The sensor response was measured by exposing the sensor in different concentration of water and methanol vapor. A short pulse measurement technique was introduced to measure the sensor response which was not affected by the measurement parameters.

As the demand for cheaper electronic devices has increased, the location of manufacturing foundries has changed to untrusted places outside of the United States. Some of these locations have limited oversight of the manufacturing of complicated and sensitive electronic components including integrated circuits (IC). IC, a key component in all current electronic devices, can be modified to be malicious or to monitor the functions of their applications. These malicious modifications are called Hardware Trojans. Hardware Trojans can be de- signed to quietly monitor, to actively send out unencrypted sensitive information, or to actively destroy their host device. Our research demonstrates the ability of Hardware Trojans to infiltrate a sensor network that could be remotely deployed for various applications. This research is important due to the dearth of knowledge on the subject. Currently, software security is given great importance. Our research shows that the same level of importance must be given to hardware to ensure a trusted and secure environment.

Cancer is a leading cause of death and some types of cancer are hard to diagnose at early stages. An accurate method for subtype classification of cancer types is also critical for patients to receive effective treatments. Many cancer biomarkers (e.g., EGFR for lung cancers and CD19/CD20 for leukemia) have been found with potential of being used for cancer diagnosis and subtype cancer classification. A biosensing technique being able to detect biomarkers with a miniaturized system, based on extraordinary light transmission (EOT) through nanohole arrays on metal films, is promising for cancer diagnosis and subtype classifications. In this research, the detection of different biomarkers (EGFR, CD19 and CD20) was demonstrated using a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) setup with EOT. The concentration of EGFR from cell lysate solution was determined using the SPR setup and compared with a current analytical method (ELISA). The SPR setup gave a detection limit concentration of 0.77 g/mL for the EGFR. The EGFR concentration from the cell lysate was determined to be greater than 10 g/mL from SPR experiments; while a lower concentration of 0.604 g/mL was found from ELISA indicating some problems with the calibration curves obtained in the SPR experiments. A whole lung cancer cell capture experiment was also conducted using microscopy imaging and the SPR setup. A number of 11 2 cells/mm2 was captured from a pre-modified metal surface, which was confirmed by SPR. / Graduate / 0752 / 0541

The purpose of this study was to design a passive nanostrain Radio Frequency strain sensor that helps to monitor the strain changes caused by traffic in motion on bridges. The phase sensitive interrogation method was applied meaning that the strain changes will be measured by the cavity sensor phase shift. The results revealed that the RF strain sensor could achieve a resolution of a few nanostrain. The principle conclusion was that the designed RF strain sensor has nanostrain sensitivity. Coaxial-Cylinder sensor sensitivity was 8 nanostrain. Cylinder volume resonant cavity sensor sensitivity was 8 nanostrain for high Q and 4 nanostrain for low Q. (BW = 160Hz) These sensitivities were somewhat larger than theoretical estimates due to noise from sauces other than the thermal noise used in the theoretical estimation. Therefore sensors will be useful for Structural Health Monitoring applications.

Cancer is a leading cause of death and some types of cancer are hard to diagnose at early stages. An accurate method for subtype classification of cancer types is also critical for patients to receive effective treatments. Many cancer biomarkers (e.g., EGFR for lung cancers and CD19/CD20 for leukemia) have been found with potential of being used for cancer diagnosis and subtype cancer classification. A biosensing technique being able to detect biomarkers with a miniaturized system, based on extraordinary light transmission (EOT) through nanohole arrays on metal films, is promising for cancer diagnosis and subtype classifications. In this research, the detection of different biomarkers (EGFR, CD19 and CD20) was demonstrated using a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) setup with EOT. The concentration of EGFR from cell lysate solution was determined using the SPR setup and compared with a current analytical method (ELISA). The SPR setup gave a detection limit concentration of 0.77 µg/mL for the EGFR. The EGFR concentration from the cell lysate was determined to be greater than 10 µg/mL from SPR experiments; while a lower concentration of 0.604 µg/mL was found from ELISA indicating some problems with the calibration curves obtained in the SPR experiments. A whole lung cancer cell capture experiment was also conducted using microscopy imaging and the SPR setup. A number of 11 ± 2 cells/mm2 was captured from a pre-modified metal surface, which was confirmed by SPR. / Graduate / 0752 / 0541

No description available.

No description available.

The main purpose of this thesis is to propose a broadband miniaturized spectroscopy system to detect dielectric constant and loss tangent of lossy organic materials at RF/Microwave frequencies. Complex permittivities of lossy liquids are measured using voltage variations across a sensing element embedded in a capacitive divider circuit. The methodology for characterization of complex permittivity of materials is explained in detail. The proposed method provides a unique detection algorithm to extract the dielectric constant and loss tangent of an unknown material exposed to the sensor. The complex permittivity of binary organic mixtures have been extracted to an accuracy better than 5% using sample volumes of 200-300 μL within the frequency range of 1-2 GHz. The results obtained from the measurements are compared to the reported values, and their agreements are presented in this work. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work presented for broadband miniaturized self-sustained complex permittivity spectroscopy at microwave frequencies.