Acoustic sensors play an important role in many areas, such as homeland security, navigation, communication, health care and industry. However, the fundamental pressure detection limit hinders the performance of current acoustic sensing technologies. Here, through analytical, numerical and experimental studies, we show that anisotropic acoustic metamaterials can be designed to have strong wave compression effect that renders direct amplification of pressure fields in metamaterials. This enables a sensing mechanism that can help overcome the detection limit of conventional acoustic sensing systems. We further demonstrate a metamaterial-enhanced acoustic sensing system that achieves more than 20 dB signal-to-noise enhancement (over an order of magnitude enhancement in detection limit). With this system, weak acoustic pulse signals overwhelmed by the noise are successfully recovered. This work opens up new vistas for the development of metamaterialbased acoustic sensors with improved performance and functionalities that are highly desirable for many applications.

We present a miniature Fabry-Perot pressure sensor fabricated at the tip of an optical fiber with a pre-written Bragg grating by using UV-molding polymer process. The mold is constructed by integrating an optical fiber of 80 μm diameter with a zirconia ferrule. The optical fiber based mold makes it possible to use optical aligning method to monitor the coupled intensity between the mold-side and replica-side fibers, rendering a maskless alignment process with a submicrometer accuracy. A polymer-metal composite thin diaphragm is employed as the pressure transducer. The overall sensor size is around 200 μm in diameter. Experimental study shows that the sensor exhibits a good linearity over a pressure range of 1.9-7.9 psi, with a sensitivity of 0.0106 μm/psi. The fiber Bragg grating is exploited for simultaneous temperature measurements or compensation for temperature effects in pressure readings. The sensor is expected to benefit many fronts that require miniature and inexpensive sensors for reliable pressure measurement, especially biomedical applications.

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We present a micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) based Fabry-Perot (FP) sensor along with an optical system-on-a-chip (SOC) interrogator for simultaneous pressure and temperature sensing. The sensor employs a simple structure with an air-backed silicon membrane cross-axially bonded to a 45° polished optical fiber. This structure renders two cascaded FP cavities, enabling simultaneous pressure and temperature sensing in close proximity along the optical axis. The optical SOC consists of a broadband source, a MEMS FP tunable filter, a photodetector, and the supporting circuitry, serving as a miniature spectrometer for retrieving the two FP cavity lengths. Within the measured pressure and temperature ranges, experimental results demonstrate that the sensor exhibits a good linear response to external pressure and temperature changes.

A novel, maskless, low‐volume bumping material, called solder bump maker, which is composed of a resin and low‐melting‐point solder powder, has been developed. The resin features no distinct chemical reactions preventing the rheological coalescence of the solder, a deoxidation of the oxide layer on the solder powder for wetting on the pad at the solder melting point, and no major weight loss caused by out‐gassing. With these characteristics, the solder was successfully wetted onto a metal pad and formed a uniform solder bump array with pitches of 120 µm and 150 µm.