Electrochemical sensors and on-chip optical sensors

The microelectronics technology has seen a tremendous growth over the past sixty years. The advancements in microelectronics, which shows the capability of yielding highly reliable and reproducible structures, have made the mass production of integrated electronic components feasible. Miniaturized, low-cost, and accurate sensors became available due to the rise of the microelectronics industry. A variety of sensors are being used extensively in many portable applications. These sensors are promising not only in research area but also in daily routine applications.

However, many sensing systems are relatively bulky, complicated, and expensive and main advantages of new sensors do not play an important role in practical applications. Many challenges arise due to intricacies for sensor packaging, especially operation in a solution environment. Additional problems emerge when interfacing sensors with external off-chip components. A large amount of research in the field of sensors has been focused on how to improve the system integration.

This work presents new methods for the design, fabrication, and integration of sensor systems. This thesis addresses these challenges, for example, interfacing microelectronic system to a liquid environment and developing a new technique for impedimetric measurement. This work also shows a new design for on-chip optical sensor without any other extra components or post-processing.