College of Engineering |

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Researchers in MSU’s Electrical and Computer Engineering department have published an article in a 2023 issue of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Journal of Materials Chemistry C that made the cover of the journal. The paper titled “Microfluidic thermal flow sensor based on phase-change material with ultra-high thermal sensitivity” was authored by Yungi Cao, Tongyu Wang, and ECE Professor Nelson Sepulveda. The paper describes the use of phase-change materials --VO2 in particular-- in a microfluidic gas flow sensor. The advantage of using this phase-change material (instead of traditional metals with high temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR)) is the extremely high sensitivity of VO2 with temperature across its phase transition. As an example of the impact on sensitivity, typical platinum or nickel metals used in commercially available devices have TCR values in the order of 7000 parts per million per degree Kelvin. This value for VO2 is more than 50 times greater.