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Topical Advisory Panel Members' Collection Series: Advanced Electronic Materials and Their Sensing Applications

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Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Electronic Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 May 2024) | Viewed by 3786

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Razvan Pascu

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Guest Editor

National Institute for Research and Development in Microtechnologies—IMT Bucharest, 077190 Bucharest, Romania
Interests: SiC devices; Schottky diode; MOS capacitor; temperature sensors; gas sensors; microfabrication techniques; electrical characterization; data processing; interface characterization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Gian Domenico Licciardo

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Guest Editor

Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, SA, Italy
Interests: electrical characterization of semiconductor devices; wide-band-gap semiconductor devices and sensors; low-power neural network for in-sensor implementation; VLSI circuits

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

To celebrate the latest achievements of the journal, this Special Issue is now compiling a collection of feature papers invited by the Section Topical Advisory Panel Members and submitted by outstanding scholars in this research field. The scope of the call encompasses a wide array of sensor types, with a clear focus on emerging materials, the extended capabilities of derived sensing elements and their applications. Points of special interest include wide-band-gap semiconductor sensors, materials and coatings for electrochemical sensors, innovative sensing element structures (porous Si/SiC, Si/SiC nanowires), MEMS sensors (pressure and inertial sensors, microphones, etc.), read-out circuits and sensor-signal processing techniques. New advanced materials, such as covalent organic frameworks (COFs), can be considered for substrate functionalization in the context of electronic property enhancement. These are a class of crystalline and porous polymers, in which periodic building units are able to form pores of a controllable size. Investigations and predictions on operation limits, characterization and cutting-edge computer-aided modelling for such innovative devices are strongly encouraged. New materials and processes can also be considered for MEMS sensors: membrane topologies and materials, multi-stacked layers, for example, as well as the effects of environmentally induced stress on their behavior (temperature, pressure, etc.). The improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio requires a holistic approach, also involving the surrounding electronics. Therefore, new read-out circuits and signal processing techniques based on artificial intelligence (AI) will also be taken into consideration, enabling signal filtering, monitoring and correction of the sensor parameters, as well as edge applications. Points of special interest include the design of in-sensor or in-package AI accelerators, built with very compact and low-power circuital solutions to be closed coupled with the sensor circuitry or embedded in the same sensor package.

We invite you to submit the most advanced results in:

Sensors on wide-band-gap semiconductors for high-temperature operation;
Sensor modelling over large operation domains;
Computer optimization for wide-range sensor parameterization;
Electrochemical sensors using advanced materials, such as COFs;
MEMS sensors technology;
SNR improvement techniques;
Artificial intelligence signal processing techniques;
Low-power AI accelerators for near/in-sensors applications;
New techniques for signal conditioning embedded into the read-out circuitry of the sensors.

Dr. Razvan Pascu
Dr. Gian Domenico Licciardo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

wide-band-gap semiconductors
wide-range temperature sensors
sensor modelling
optimization computing
wide operation range
electrochemical sensors
MEMS sensors
artificial intelligence
in-sensor circuit
in-package sensor circuits

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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24 pages, 42656 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A 4H-SiC CMOS Oscillator-Based Temperature Sensor Operating from 298 K up to 573 K

by Nicola Rinaldi, Rosalba Liguori, Alexander May, Chiara Rossi, Mathias Rommel, Alfredo Rubino, Gian Domenico Licciardo and Luigi Di Benedetto

Sensors 2023, 23(24), 9653; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23249653 - 6 Dec 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1000

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a temperature sensor based on a 4H-SiC CMOS oscillator circuit and that is able to operate in the temperature range between 298 K and 573 K. The circuit is developed on Fraunhofer IISB’s 2 μm 4H-SiC CMOS technology and is designed for a bias voltage of 20 V and an oscillation frequency of 90 kHz at room temperature. The possibility to relate the absolute temperature with the oscillation frequency is due to the temperature dependency of the threshold voltage and of the channel mobility of the transistors. An analytical model of the frequency-temperature dependency has been developed and is used as a starting point for the design of the circuit. Once the circuit has been designed, numerical simulations are performed with the Verilog-A BSIM4SiC model, which has been opportunely tuned on Fraunhofer IISB’s 2 μm 4H-SiC CMOS technology, and their results showed almost linear frequency-temperature characteristics with a coefficient of determination that was higher than 0.9681 for all of the bias conditions, whose maximum is 0.9992 at a

V_{D D}

= 12.5 V. Moreover, we considered the effects of the fabrication process through a Monte Carlo analysis, where we varied the threshold voltage and the channel mobility with different values of the Gaussian distribution variance. For example, at

V_{D D}

= 20 V, a deviation of

17.4 %

from the nominal characteristic is obtained for a Gaussian distribution variance of

20 %

. Finally, we applied the one-point calibration procedure, and temperature errors of +8.8 K and −5.8 K were observed at

V_{D D}

= 15 V. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Topical Advisory Panel Members' Collection Series: Advanced Electronic Materials and Their Sensing Applications)

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Review

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29 pages, 5238 KiB

Open AccessReview

Infrared HOT Photodetectors: Status and Outlook

by Antoni Rogalski, Małgorzata Kopytko, Weida Hu and Piotr Martyniuk

Sensors 2023, 23(17), 7564; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23177564 - 31 Aug 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2370

Abstract

At the current stage of long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) detector technology development, the only commercially available detectors that operate at room temperature are thermal detectors. However, the efficiency of thermal detectors is modest: they exhibit a slow response time and are not very useful for multispectral detection. On the other hand, in order to reach better performance (higher detectivity, better response speed, and multispectral response), infrared (IR) photon detectors are used, requiring cryogenic cooling. This is a major obstacle to the wider use of IR technology. For this reason, significant efforts have been taken to increase the operating temperature, such as size, weight and power consumption (SWaP) reductions, resulting in lower IR system costs. Currently, efforts are aimed at developing photon-based infrared detectors, with performance being limited by background radiation noise. These requirements are formalized in the Law 19 standard for P-i-N HgCdTe photodiodes. In addition to typical semiconductor materials such as HgCdTe and type-II A^IIIB^V superlattices, new generations of materials (two-dimensional (2D) materials and colloidal quantum dots (CQDs)) distinguished by the physical properties required for infrared detection are being considered for future high-operating-temperature (HOT) IR devices. Based on the dark current density, responsivity and detectivity considerations, an attempt is made to determine the development of a next-gen IR photodetector in the near future. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Topical Advisory Panel Members' Collection Series: Advanced Electronic Materials and Their Sensing Applications)

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