The department of Electronics and Communication Engineering at Punjab Engineering College (Deemed to be University), Chandigarh has organized a two-days Workshop on "Micro/Nano technologies based devices/sensors and actuators" on March 08-09, 2019 in technical collaboration with IEEE Chandigarh Subsection. The event was financially supported by Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP)-III an initiative of Government of India and the World Bank. The workshop was jointly inaugurated by Prof. Neena Gupta, Chairperson, IEEE Chandigarh Subsection and Dr. Sanjay Batish, Coordinator, TEQIP-III. Dr. Arun Kumar Singh, Coordinator Workshop highlighted the main purpose behind organizing this workshop and encouraged the participants to get the maximum benefit by understanding the basic concepts, ideas and physics for the development of futuristic micro/nano technologies based devices/sensors and actuators.
The two-days workshop was focused on the design and development of MEMS-based ultrasonic transducers, MEMS-based piezoresistive pressure sensors, MEMS-based accuators, carbon nanotechnology, nanopatterning techniques, nano-bio sensors, electrochemical sensors and their applications. The speakers of the workshop were Sr. Scientists from CSIR- Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute (CEERI) Pilani, a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Govt. of India.
In the session on "Design and Development of MEMS based accelerometer" , Dr. Ravindra Mukhiya elaborated on the design of low cost MEMS based accelerometer based on piezoresistive transduction mechanism. He addressed various challenges incurred during design and fabrication of accelerometer along with explaining its applications in flight and navigation control in avionics. He also highlighted the improved differential mode of accelerometer and its noise cancellation capability with increased sensitivity. Dr. S Santosh Kumar briefed the audience about "MEMS based piezoresistive pressure sensor" which is replacing conventional macro pressure sensors for detecting gas pressure etc. in pipelines/valves in industries. He further elaborated specialized MEMS fabrication techniques like surface and bulk micromachining and their applications in creating miniaturized MEMS devices at micro scale. The session on "Carbon Nanotechnology and Nanopatterning Techniques" was delivered by Dr. Pankaj Bhushan Agarwal. He explained unique electrical and optical properties of carbon nano-tubes and their applications in various emerging fields. He informed about recent novel lithography techniques such as DPN, AFM based lithography etc. for Nano pattering of futuristic nanoelectronic devices. The material morphological characterization is another important aspect of any nanoelectronic device/senosor fabrication which was explained by Dr. Rishi Sharma. He mainly discussed about the utilization of Raman spectroscopy for the development of Nano-Bio sensors and Electrochemical Sensors.
More than 90 participants from different institutes such as CSIO Mohali, Centre for development of advanced Computing (CDAC), INST Mohali, Chandigarh University, Panjab University, SGGSWU Fatehgarh Sahib, PEC Chandigarh including international participant through TWAS-CSIR attended the workshop. In the valedictory session, certificates to the participants were distributed by Prof. Deepak Bagai, Head, Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering.