This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 9291, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction (if any), and Conference Committee listing.

Frequency of an output signal from a Light-to-Frequency Converter (LFC) is proportional to light intensity. Under dynamic conditions, instantaneous frequency values represent instantaneous values of light intensity. In order to precisely determine frequency of the pulse signal in short time it is required to measure its successive periods. But if the light intensity changes, time between successive pulses of the output signal from LFC changes too, which prevents from obtaining the results of light measurement at regular time intervals. This work presents an algorithm for digital processing of a pulse frequency signal from LFC to obtain instantaneous values of light intensity at regular time intervals. Appropriate analytical dependences and examples of measurement results are also presented. Measurement circuit was built using DAQ-Card PCI-6602 and LabVIEW package of National Instruments.

The purpose of this article is to study the modeling of determining temperature distributions using the line-of-sight spectra measurement and analysis method. Utilized measuring method is presented. Simulation study using HITRAN data, which collects parameters of absorption lines of the major components of the Earth's atmosphere, is carried out. The obtained results permit to assess the usefulness of the selected absorption lines for determining temperature distribution using the line-of-sight method. Simulation studies are a preliminary step to build a measuring device.

The paper presents the design, technology and parameters of a new, silicon 64-element linear photodiode array developed at the Institute of Electron Technology (ITE) for the detection of scintillations emitted by CsI scintillators (λ≈550 nm). The arrays are used in a device for examining the content of containers at border crossings under development at the National Centre for Nuclear Research. Two arrays connected with a scintillator block (128 CsI scintillators) form a 128-channel detection module. The array consists of 64 epiplanar photodiode structures (5.1 × 7.2 mm) and a 5.3 mm module. p+-ν-n+ photodiode structures are optimised for the detection of radiation of λ≈ 550 nm wavelength with no voltage applied (photovoltaic mode). The structures are mounted on an epoxy-glass laminate substrate, copper-clad on both sides, on which connections with a common anode and separate cathode leads are located. The photosensitive surface of photodiodes is covered with a special silicone gel, which protects photodiodes against the mechanical impact of scintillators

The aim of the research was to develop an enzymatic, optical biosensor which provides quick and convenient determination of phenolic compounds in aqueous solutions. The biosensing strategy concerns design, fabrication and testing of a miniature ceramic-based biosensor which is destined for in-situ substrate monitoring. The base of the measuring system was fabricated using low temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) technology. The biocatalyst – laccase– was immobilized on the thin film of poly[N-nonyl-3,6-bis(ethylenedioxythiophene)carbazole] which provided good binding of the enzyme to the substrate and positively affected on the catalytic activity of the protein. In order to evaluate properties of the designed biosensor, its response for various concentrations of 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diamonnium sal (ABTS) was measured. The optical biosensor produced by presented method could find applications in many fields, i.e. for detection of phenolic compounds in food products and beverages, in industry for control of technological processes or for environmental monitoring

The paper presents the design, technology and parameters of a new .silicon detector for detection of electrons (below named as beta detector) developed at the Institute of Electron Technology (ITE). The detector will be used for research on transactinide elements at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Darmstadt (GSI). The detector consists of a monolithic 32-element array with an active area diameter of 90 mm and a thickness of 0.9 mm. The starting material is a high-resistivity ν silicon wafer (5 kΩcm resistivity). 32 planar p⁺-ν junctions are formed by boron diffusion on the top side of the wafer. On the bottom side, an n⁺ region, which forms a common cathode, is formed on the entire surface by phosphorus diffusion. The array is mounted on a special epoxy-glass laminate substrate, copper-clad on both sides. Two model detectors have been fabricated and studied. Very good electrical parameters have been achieved. For the first array, with supply voltage V_R = 20 V, the minimum dark current was 8 nA, the maximum dark current 97.1 nA, and the average dark current 25.1 nA. For the second array, it was 11.5 nA, 378.8 nA and 40.0 nA respectively.

The subject of this paper is to describe the novel method of substrates bonding applied in MEMS technology. This method gives a possibility of carrying out bonding processes in standard devices for wafer bonding. It can be applied to chemical, high voltage or high temperature sensitive surfaces. It can be used for bonding substrates with deep etching area with sharp edges and covered with films characterized by low adhesion to the classical materials exploited for photolithography. The main idea of the method is based on two various polymer materials usage. The first material enables to define accurate borders of bonding area, whereas the other guarantees suitable parameters of bonding: firstly the exact adhesion and a stable join and secondly, desirable electrical or thermal parameters.

Thermal power and excess air coefficient are one of key parameters that characterize operating point of combustion process. In practice, they are hard to determine directly. The k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) regression algorithm was applied where some flame image geometric parameters were used as predictors. The model was assessed by carrying out several combustion tests for nine different settings of the laboratory combustion facility. Thermal power and excess air coefficient were kept constant and set independently for known biomass content.

The article concerns the development of the methods and systems for non-invasive optical diagnostics of tissues. The problems of information content tissue backscattering characteristics, planning the optical measurements and the interpretation of the data of optical sensing of the tissue by fibre-optic devices and systems of multispectral video reflectometry are considered.

A method of reducing measuring time of temperature measurements of biological objects based on preheating the resistance temperature detector (RTD) up to the temperature close to the temperature to be measured, is proposed. It has been found that at the same measuring time, the preheating allows to decrease the measurement error by a factor of 5 to 45 over the temperature range of 35-41°С. The measurement time is reduced by 1.6-4 times over this range, keeping the same value of the measurement error.

Open-Path Fourier Transform Infrared FTIR gas measurement methods are commonly used in environmental monitoring. They are non-invasive and remote sensing techniques with relatively simple measuring setup. CLS (Classical Least Squares), PLS (Partial Least Squares) methods and HITRAN simulated data are often used for spectra analysis. Unfortunately, data interpretation in these type of measurement require sophisticated algorithms and expert knowledge as well. Recently, the effect of temperature influence on the determination of gas content is studied in many scientific papers. However, in practice, the temperature non-uniformity along the observed path can occurs apart from the temperature changes. In order to assess the effect of temperature variation and its non-uniformity absorption spectra simulation model is built. Then PLS models, based on synthetically generated data for different temperatures is created. Next, the effect of temperature influence on CO concentration was calculated together with the simulation spectra for temperature non-uniform optical path. For these spectra gas content were determined by using PLS models built for specific temperature. In our case the calibration model was built using synthetic spectra for different temperatures in 290-340 K range. Finally, it was shown that the constructed universal model is less sensitive to temperature nonuniformity than the classical one.

The paper presents and compares the results of investigation on classification of atmospheric air samples collected in a vicinity of municipal landfill with respect to their odour nuisance. The research was conducted using a prototype of electronic nose instrument and a commercial electronic nose of Fast/Flash GC type – HERACLES II. The prototype was equipped with six semiconductor sensors of TGS type. Classification of the air samples with respect to the place of collection relative to the landfill was performed using quadratic discriminant function (QDA) supported with cross-validation method. More than 80% of the samples were correctly classified employing the analysis with HERACLES II. The prototype of electronic nose provided correct classification of 50% of the samples.

The paper presents the results of investigation on quality evaluation of agricultural distillates using a prototype of electronic nose instrument and a commercial electronic nose of Fast/Flash GC type– HERACLES II. The prototype was equipped with TGS type semiconductor sensors. HERACLES II included two chromatographic columns with different polarity of stationary phase and two FID detectors. In case of the prototype volatile fraction of the agricultural distillate was prepared via barbotage process, whereas HERACLES II analysed the headspace fraction. Classification of the samples into three quality classes was performed using: quadratic discriminant function (QDA), supported with cross-validation method. Over 95% correct classification of the agricultural distillates into particular quality classes was observed for the analyses with HERACLES II. The prototype of electronic nose provided correct classification at the level of 70%.

This paper describes the idea of the energy harvester which converts thermal gradient present in environment into electricity. Two kinds of such devices are proposed and their prototypes are shown and discussed. The main parts of harvesters are bimetallic spring, piezoelectric transducer or electrostatic transducer with electret. The applied piezomembrane was commercial available product but electrets was made by authors. In the paper a fabrication procedure of electrets formed by the corona discharge process is described. Devices were compared in terms of generated power, charging current, and the voltage across a storage capacitor.

This paper presents how an array of sensors with different sensitivities to gases can be applied for detection of hydrogen in the presence of humidity when operated upon various temperature - induced profiles. The sensors in the array are subject to temperature modulation over the range of 350 – 500°C. Temperature profiles are based on a cardinal sine as well as Meyer wavelet phi and psi functions. Changes in the sensor operating temperature lead to distinct resistance patterns of the sensors depending on gas concentration. The sensors responses are studied as a function of target gas concentration (0 – 3000 ppm) and relative humidity level (0 – 75%Rh). Feedforward back-propagation neural networks are used in order to facilitate gas concentration and humidity level prediction. The results show reliable hydrogen detection upon temperature modulation and a reduction of the total power consumption.

The paper presents an entirely fiber optic Mach-Zehnder interferometer formed in a polarization maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM PCF). It uses the interference between the polarization modes and the cladding modes. The method of collapsing the air holes in a single segment of the PM PCF was applied to excite the cladding mode from the polarization modes of the PM PCF and create the coupling region of these modes. Measurements of the wavelength spectra of the produced interferometers were performed. The influence of the interferometer length on the period of the wavelength spectrum was investigated experimentally. On the basis of these measurements the difference of the group refractive indices of the polarization modes and the cladding mode was determined. The dependence of the strain sensitivity coefficient of the produced interferometers on the wavelength was determined experimentally. The possibilities of application of the constructed interferometer for sensors are presented.

Reflective sensors involving optical fibers are very popular due to low cost and EMI insensitive. In this paper, a new concept is described regarding proximity sensors based on ball-lensed optical fibers (PSBBOF). Two types of sensors are presented: (1) Type A with one transmitting and four receiving optical fibers and (2) Type B with one transmitting and eight receiving optical fibers. In both PSBBOF types ball-lensed optical fibers are used as a receiving line. Sensitive of both PSBBOF is compared to sensitive of sensors with the same configurations, but involving cleaved optical fibers. All developed sensors were tested at two wavelengths: 850 nm and 1300 nm. As a refractive surface the silicon wafer was used.

There are many solutions used for current measurements in power lines. The study shows a transducer consisting of a ferromagnetic core, a beam placed in an air-gap and a sensor for optical readout. The beam is made of silicon with a thin 50%Ni50%Fe film. The material of the core is permalloy. A distribution of magnetic field depends on current supplying the power line. The beam is deflected due to magnetic field in the air-gap. A deflection of the beam is measured by the optical fibre sensor. Its advantage is simple design, high precision of processing, non-electric transmission, low costs and ability of a non-contact measurement. Comsol Multiphysics 4.4 and Magnetic Fields Module (mef) were used for modeling. An influence of magnetic circuit's materials and dimensions of the ferromagnetic core and the air-gap were tested in order to determine the most sufficient distribution of magnetic field in the air-gap. The study shows results of the modeling of the transducer compared to practical results for a similar construction scaled down to lower current values.

The aim of this paper is to present the concept of temperature measurement system, adapted to wearable electronics applications. Temperature is one of the most commonly monitored factor in smart textiles, especially in sportswear, medical and rescue products. Depending on the application, measured temperature could be used as an initial value of alert, heating, lifesaving or analysis system. The concept of the temperature measurement multi-point system, which consists of flexible screen-printed resistive sensors, placed on the T-shirt connected with the central unit and the power supply is elaborated in the paper.

This paper presents a possibility of use of hydrogel in microfluidic system, which can be a promising tool for threedimensional cell culture. In the research the commercially available self-assembling peptide hydrogel Puramatrix was used. Gelation of this hydrogel is initiated by the contact with culture medium. That’s why it is critical that no salts or culture medium come in contact with this hydrogel until gelation is desired. The geometry of the designed microdevice enables hydrodynamic focusing of liquid hydrogel-cells mixture and then gelation of the mixture in the middle of the main microchannel due to the flow of the culture medium. As a sheath fluid sucrose solution was used. It provides also, in the first stage, isolation of culture medium (containing gelling salts) from liquid mixture of hydrogel and cells. When the flow of sucrose solution is turned off, the culture medium starts to be in contact to the hydrogel mixed with cell. As a result, simultaneously gelation of the hydrogel and encapsulation of cells in it are successfully achieved.

Quantum dots (QDs) semi-conducting nanocrystals have found numerous applications in many fields of science. Nowadays one can observe a growing perspective to use them in biomedicine. Thanks to QDs unique fluorescence properties (narrow emission spectra, high extinction coefficients, high quantum yields, photostability) and possibility to form conjugates with bioactive molecules, they can become a chance for better cancer cells imaging in cancer therapy. Therefore there is a need for better understanding of biological interactions between QDs and cancer cells in vitro. For this purpose we performed cytotoxicity tests of CdSeS/ZnS quantum dots stabilized with mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) ligand, on human lung cancer cell line (A549) in vitro in macro- (96-well plate) and micro-scale (a specially designed and fabricated microfluidic device). The results obtained demonstrated a little extent of cytotoxic effect of selected solutions of QDs to A549 cells.

The paper presents the examination of modern flexible piezoelectric thin films made of PVDF (polyvinylidene difluoride) in terms of their application in electromechanical transducers, a brief overview of available piezoelectric materials and energy harvesting devices based on piezoelectric. In order to assess the usefulness of these films from the perspective of described devices, the energy efficiency coefficient determined under the pulse excitation conditions was taken into account. Normalized volumetric efficiency ratio allows to evaluate the commercially available flexible piezoelectric films.

The paper presents the principle of the operation of a spectropolarimetric interferometer. In the planar waveguide orthogonal modes of type TE and TM can be excited for the entire visible light. During the propagation the difference of the phases between the modes is determined, which is the function of the length of the path of propagation, the difference of the effective refractive index (N_TM-N_TE) and the wavelength. At the output of this system the spectral distribution of intensity is recorded, the shape of which depends on the value of the refractive index of the cover of the waveguides.

The properties of energy conditioning electrical circuits that are developed for powering additional functional blocks of autonomous RFID transponders working in the HF band have been analyzed and presented in the paper. The concept of autonomy is realized by implementing extra functions in the typical transponder. First of all, the autonomous system should harvest energy, e.g. from the electromagnetic field of read/write devices but also the possibility of gathering information about environment should be available, e.g. by measuring different kind of physical quantities. In such an electrical device, the crucial problem consists in energy conditioning because the output voltage-current characteristic of an front-end (antenna with matching and harvesting circuit) as well as the total and instantaneous power load generated by internal circuits are strongly dependent on a realized function but also on energy and communication conditions in the RFID interface. The properly designed solution should improve harvesting efficiency, current leakage of supply storage, matching between antenna and input circuits, in order to save energy and increase operating time in such a battery-free system. The authors present methods how to increase the autonomous operation time even at advanced measuring algorithms. The measuring system with wide spectrum of sensors dedicated for different quantities (physical, chemical, etc.) has also been presented. The results of model calculations and experimental verifications have been also discussed on the basis of investigations conducted in the unique laboratory stand of object navigation systems.

Laser Direct Writing (LDW) are used in the manufacture of electronic circuits, pads, and paths in sub millimeter scale. They can also be used in the sensors systems. Ablative laser writing in a thin functional layer of material deposited on the dielectric substrate is one of the LDW methods. Nowadays functional conductive layers are composed from graphene paint or nanosilver paint, indium tin oxide (ITO), AgHT^TM and layers containing carbon nanotubes. Creating conducting structures in transparent layers (ITO, AgHT and carbon nanotubes layers) may have special importance e.g. for flexi electronics. The paper presents research on the fabrication of systems of paths and appropriate pattern systems of paths and selected electronic circuits in AgHT^TM and ITO layers deposited on glass and polymer substrates. An influence of parameters of ablative fiber laser treatment in nanosecond regime as well as an influence of scanning mode of laser beam on the pattern fidelity and on electrical parameters of a generated circuit was investigated.