H. Qu Research

The MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) Laboratory at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Oakland University was established in 2007 by Dr. Hongwei Qu. Since its inception, the MEMS Laboratory has conducted a number of federal, state and industrial projects, along with some intramural projects.

The MEMS Lab is consisted of a 1000-sqft Grade 1000 clean room for MEMS device fabrication and examination; a 500-sqft lab for device design, characterization and electronics implementation. Recently, the lab is further equipped with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) capability for micro analysis and MEMS process development. Oakland MEMS Laboratory is affiliated with Lurie Nanofabrication Facility (LNF) for microfabrication of MEMS devices. Other commercial foundry services have also been utilized.

Research Group

Group Members

Current Research Interest

CMOS-MEMS Technology
MEMS Inertial Sensors
MEMS Biological Sensors and Applications
RF-MEMS Devices
MEMS Based Medical Devices and Systems
Other Solid-state Devices and Technologies

Selected Current Projects

Dr. Qu's research has been supported by NSF, MEDC, NEA, and industrial companies. A number of projectes have been completed since Dr. Qu joined OU.

Publications resulted from the following and other projects can be found in Publicaiton Tab.

A recent publication has been highlighted at the SECS media report.

Magnetic Materials and Sensors

The goal of this NSF project is to implement and apply high-sensitivity magnetic sensor and sensor arrays in biomedical imaging. MEMS technologies are used in magnetostrictive sensor fabrication to enable device miniaturization and sensor array layout.
This is a colaborative project in which Dr. Gopalan Srinivasan's group at Physics Department contributes magnetic material preparation.

Bonded silicon-quartz in fabrication

Electrothermal MEMS Switches

Single actuator action video

Electrothermal MEMS Gripper

SEM photo of the gripper. For operation of the gripper, see below.

The following clip demonstrates the gripper, with an openning up to 170 micrometers, trying to hold a hair.

Tweezers holding hair

OU Logo

The feature size is about 100 um.

Fully Differential Metal MEMS Accelerometer

Fully differential scheme is uniquely realized in the metal metal accelerometer fabricated using MetalMUMPs technology.

Advanced Instruments for Material and Device Characterizations

To facilitate his and other scholars' research at Oakland University, Dr. H. Qu has established an advanced analytical instrument center with other faculty members. The instruments are funded by federal agencies such as NSF and ARO.

Currently a JEOL JSM-6510/GS scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a JEOL JEM-2100Plus, and associated tools are serving not only the research community at Oakland, but also industrial companies in Metro Detroit area. The introduction of these instruments can be found here.