A piezoelelctric quartz-crystal plate can be used as a microbalance (a quartz-crystal microbalance, QCM). When substances adsorbed on a gold electrode, a fundamental frequency of a QCM is decreased linearly with increasing mass on the electrode. The host molecule-immobilized QCM is used as a biosensor responding to the addition of guest molecules in aqueous solution in nanogram level.

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High resolution SQUID magnetometers had previously been developed which was designed for nerves, muscles, slices of brain tissue and small animals. In these SQUID system, diameters of the pickup coil were a few mm and the distances between the pickup coil and the outside surface of the dewer was a few mm. In this study, we developed a super high resolution SQUID magnetometer having higher spatial resolution than previous systems. In this system, diameter of the pickup coil is 200 µm, the distance between the pickup coil and the outside surface of the dewar is 800 µm. The typical system noise in the magnetic shielded room is 2.7pT/√Hz in the frequency from 1Hz to 10kHz. We discuss features of the measurement system and the spatial resolution of this SQUID system using a current source model. It can be discriminated extreme of magnetic field pattern obtained from the meander line of 500 µm interval.

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This paper proposes and demonstrates a CMOS image sensor for Hyper Omni Vision, which can capture a surrounding image in whole direction at a time. The pixel of the sensor is configured so as to correct a distorted image reflected through a hyperbolic mirror. The sensor with 32 x 32 pixels is fabricated using 0.6 µm CMOS technology and confirmed that the distorted image can be transformed to the corrected one. Also we propose to introduce a function of motion detection into each pixel for the application of surveillance in whole direction.

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This paper deals with the new method that makes micro-holes with electrodeposition photoresist (EDPR) as a sacrificial layer. The EDPR was deposited on a silicon-mold made by ICP-RIE. Ni film was plated on a silicon-mold covered with EDPR. Etched through a gap between a silicon-mold and the Ni film, the Ni film came off from the silicon-mold. As a result, we could make Ni films that have micro hole of 9.2µm in diameter, and 56µm in depth on an experimental basis, and verified the silicon-mold that lateral faces of columns did not bare scratch marks. Moreover, the circularity roundness was able to fill 1.5µm which was the specification of the printer nozzle.

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The authors studied the correlation between serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity and salivary ALT activity using ten healthy young adults and ten liver disease patients. Firstly, in order to establish the experimental conditions, we investigated the influence of occult blood and salivary secretion rate on the salivary ALT activity using healthy subjects. Then, simultaneous analysis of the serum and salivary ALT activities were conducted to investigate the correlation using the twenty subjects. As the results, although salivary ALT activity was as low as one third of serum ALT activity, the presence of salivary ALT activity was confirmed in healthy young adults whose saliva was not contaminated with serum. The salivary ALT activity of liver disease patients showed higher values than that of healthy young adults. In other word, if a threshold of salivary ALT activity was established, healthy young adults could be distinguished from liver disease patients.

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A multiple distributed micromachine system is needed to cover a certain working area and fulfil the intended function. One system is chain-type micromachines for the inspection of the outer surfaces of tube banks. The task is carried out cooperatively by micromachines which assemble and are connected to each other at the desired tube. But the microconnectors have yet to be developed that let micromachines automatically join and separate with each other. We developed the microconnector with an automatic connection and disconnection mechanism. To miniaturize the magnetic actuator, sliding permanent magnet system is developed. The electrical terminals and guides are fabricated by deep X-ray lithography and electroforming (LIGA-like process). It is because the high accuracy and high aspect ratio is needed to realize the reliable connection and suppress the required actuator force. This paper gives connection/disconnection performance and electrical stability of microconnector

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Recognition of an environment using tactile sensing plays an important role in the field of robotics. An active antenna, based on the concept of an insect antenna, has been suggested as a suitable tactile sensor for use in recognition of an environment in recent years. A robot sensor, such as an active antenna, usually coexists with an actuator which generates electrical noise. Accordingly, it is a requirement that the sensor is insensitive to the noise. A force sensor using a quartz resonator is inherently insensitive to noise because the output is a frequency shift. This paper deals with the application of a quartz resonator to a force sensor built into an active antenna for use in recognition of the environment, and confirms that a quartz resonator is useful as a sensor to acquire information about the contact.

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Emulsion gray-scale masks were fabricated using three types of ink-jet printers and a 1/20 projector. Scanner was used to measure the light transparency of the printed transparency sheets and emulsion gray-scale mask. Power of UV light was measured with UV power meter especially for the wavelength of 313[nm] in which photosensitive glass absorbs well. The UV light transparency of emulsion gray-scale mask was measured with UV power meter, and the effect for the etching depth of photo sensitive glass was discussed in this paper. Then, photosensitive glass was processed by the mask and deep UV light source, and the relationship between etching depth and gray-scale value was measured. From the result, characteristics emulsion gray-scale mask of were unveiled for 3-D micro machining of photosensitive glass.

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The importance of the high density packaging technology and mounting technology on the printed wiring build-up board has been increased for the consumer electric products. On the other hand, the chance to use the build-up boards for mounting the high density packages has been increased. However, the understanding that the reliability of the solder connection depends on the structure of the package, the motherboard, and the material properties, is not very high. In this paper, the reliability for high density packaging, mounted on the build-up board, is assessed. The compact numerical analysis model for the reliability assessment is suggested and the most reliable packaging design with optimizing each of the parameters is reported. For introduction to the reliability assessment of the FCA attachment, ceramic and silicon are compared as the inter-poser with the parameter of the solder height. The verification of the numerical analysis results using tests on the actual hardware is also shown. And the established numerical analysis model is applied to the study of influence of the copper balance between the front side and the back side copper layers.

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The flow-induced vibration of the microcantilever is investigated. In particular, to avoid flow disturbance resulting from size of measuring probe, we use the monolithic boron-doped piezoresistive microsensors. By characterizing the dynamic behavior of the microcantilever, the new micromechanics is experimentally determined, completely different from the conventional mechanics in the flow-induced vibration.

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It is necessary to determine the recipe of a target odor with sufficient accuracy to realize an odor recorder for recording and reproducing it. We studied the recipe measurement method of a target odor using a mass spectrometry. It was confirmed that the linear superposition was valid when the binary mixture of the apple-flavor components such as isobutyric acid and ethyl valerate was measured. The superposition of a mass spectrum pattern may enable the recipe determination of a multi-component odor easily. In this research, we succeeded in the recipe determinations of orange flavor made up of 14 component odors when its typical recipe, the equalized, the citral-enhanced and the citronellol-enhanced ones were measured.

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