Home : Volume 31 : Winter 2005 :
Granted patents pending

Materials modification — without the vacuum

Because the method is more efficient, plasma-enhanced surface modification of materials has been performed mostly under vacuum. However, vacuum systems are complex and expensive to maintain, and the current method requires that materials be completely enclosed in a chamber, ruling out continuous, assembly-line processing. The device and method for plasma modification of materials at atmospheric pressure provides a novel plasma generator that operates at atmospheric pressure and can uniformly modify inorganic and organic substrates with large surface areas, enabling efficient, assembly-line-style materials processing.

Professor Ferencz Denes of the Materials Science Program, Assistant Researcher Sorin Manolache and Irving Langmuir Professor of Engineering Physics Noah Hershkowitz developed the patented system.

Contact WARF Licensing Manager John Hardiman at jfhardiman@warf.org for more information.

Information, at a new laser speed

Currently, most systems that fiber-optically transmit data over large distances use expensive, highly temperature-sensitive 1.55-micron distributed feedback (DFB) edge-emitting lasers. But the patented type II quantum well laser devices invented by Electrical and Computer Engineering Associate Professor Luke Mawst and his former graduate student Nelson Tansu (PhD'03) provide a low-cost, gallium arsenide-based alternative that exhibits high-performance operation in the 1.55-micron region, up to elevated temperatures.

In addition, the lasers are simpler to fabricate than vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers involving wafer-bonding, distributed Bragg reflectors, and offer high gain and low sensitivity to temperature.

Contact WARF Licensing Manager John Hardiman at jfhardiman@warf.org for more information.

Computer-aided MEMS-making

Microcomponents with complex geometries and structures are essential in many applications and can deliver a new generation of functionality and performance. But until recently, there were few efficient techniques for fabricating these complex, heterogeneous microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Now, a new system (currently being patented but available for licensing through WARF) incorporates microdeposition and laser micromachining to create functionally and geometrically complex microcomponents from computer-aided design (CAD) output. The system allows parts to be made from a variety of materials that can improve MEMS properties, including robustness, fatigue life, stiffness, strength, ductility and thermal properties.

In addition, dry micro- and nano-powders can be deposited precisely without chemical mixtures. The system was invented by Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Xiaochun Li and his students. Contact WARF Licensing Manager Nadia Sifri at nadia@warf.org for more information.

Content by perspective@engr.wisc.edu

Date last modified: 26-Apr-2005
Date created: 26-Apr-2005

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