Papers by Author: Barton C. Prorok

Abstract: Magnetostrictive sensors based on ferromagnetic materials have been widely used in detecting chemicals and biological species. The MetglasTM 2826MB is one of the bulk strip materials that is employed as the sensor platform. However, the sensitivity is limited by the large size of the sensors itself. In order to improve the sensitivity, we have developed a process to fabricate microscale sensors of 500 x 100 m in size using conventional MEMS technology. As-deposited, the sensors suffered from internal stress, which was released by a annealing the sensors at 215 °C for two hours under vacuum condition. The annealing process improved the magnetic properties of the thin films and increased the resonant frequency of the sensor by 214 kHz.

Abstract: This paper reports on the influence of strain rate on the onset of mechanical softening of nanocrystalline gold at room temperature. Micro-tensile testing was performed with applied strain rates on the order of 10−4 s−1 to 10−6 s−1. Our results defined a threshold strain rate, whereby plastic deformation at larger rates was dominated by dislocation processes and at smaller rates by one or more other deformation mechanisms.