IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 57, NO.

3, MARCH 2010 861

Thermoelectric Microconverter for Energy

Harvesting Systems
Joo Paulo Carmo, Member, IEEE, Luis Miguel Gonalves, and Jos Higino Correia, Member, IEEE

AbstractThis paper presents a solution for energy microgen-

eration through energy harvesting by taking advantage of temper-
ature differences that are converted into electrical energy using
the Seebeck effect. A thermoelectric microconverter for energy
scavenging systems that can supply low-power electronics was fab-
ricated using thin films of bismuth and antimony tellurides. Thin
films of n-type bismuth (Bi2 Te3 ) and p-type antimony (Sb2 Te3 )
tellurides were obtained by thermal coevaporation with thermo-
electric figures of merit (ZT ) at room temperature of 0.84 and
0.5 and power factors (P F 103 [W K1 m2 ]) of 4.87 and
2.81, respectively. The films were patterned by photolithography
and wet-etching techniques. The goal for this thermoelectric mi-
croconverter is to supply individual electroencephalogram (EEG)
modules composed by an electrode, processing electronics, and an
antenna, where the power consumption ranges from hundredths Fig. 1. Artwork of a thermoelectric microsystem. When the heat flows across
of microwatts to a few milliwatts. Moreover, these wireless EEG the junction, an electrical power current is generated by the Seebeck effect.
modules allow patients to maintain their mobility while simulta- Practical thermoelectric generators connect a large number of junctions in series
neously having their electrical brain activity monitored. to increase the operating voltage.

Index TermsEnergy harvesting, microgeneration, renewable

energy sources, thermoelectric energy scavenging systems.
cells with a charge-integrating capacitor for periods of darkness
[8], mechanical energy can be harvested with piezoelectric
I. I NTRODUCTION or electrostatic converters [9], electromagnetic energy can be
harvested through radio-frequency resonators [10], and, finally,

C URRENTLY, there is an increased interest in renewable

sources of power, particularly in applications that require
high power levels [1][4]. There is also an increasing interest
thermal energy can be harvested with thermoelectric genera-
tors [11].
The majority of microenergy scavengers are still in the
in ubiquitous electronic devices in everyday life. Moreover, research and development phase. However, thermoelectric was
the complexity and requirements of these devices do not know the first one to appear on the market [7]. This was due to the eas-
limits. The use of batteries cannot be enough to ensure an unin- iness to fabricate these devices with solid-state technology and
terruptible working cycle. Thus, the association of such devices because they are based on a well-established physical theory.
with the use of some kind of energy-recovering system can In 1822, Seebeck noticed that the needle of a magnet was de-
reveal an interesting approach [5]. Energy scavengers are cur- flected in the presence of dissimilar metals that were connected
rently emerging for a number of applications from biomedical (electrically in series and thermally in parallel) and exposed
to automotive [4], [6]. Typically, one can distinguish between to a temperature gradient [11], [12]. The effect observed is
two types of energy scavengers, e.g., macroenergy scavengers the basis for thermoelectric power generation. As shown in
that are typically in the cubic-centimeter range and microenergy Fig. 1, if the junctions at the bottom are heated and those
scavengers that are typically in the cubic-millimeter range and at the top are cooled (producing a temperature differential),
manufactured using micromachining techniques. Microenergy electron/hole pairs will be created at the hot end and absorb heat
scavengers are small electromechanical devices that harvest in the process. The pairs recombine and reject heat at the cold
ambient energy and convert it into electricity [7]. Energy scav- edges. A voltage potential, the Seebeck voltage, which drives
engers could harvest different types of energy. Solar energy the hole/electron flow, is created by the temperature difference
can be harvested and stored by means of photovoltaic solar between the hot and cold edges of the thermoelectric elements.
The net voltage appears across the bottom of the thermoelectric
Manuscript received February 20, 2009; revised October 7, 2009. First element legs.
published October 20, 2009; current version published February 10, 2010. This The efficiency optimization of these converters needs ther-
work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology moelectric materials that are simultaneously good electric con-
FCT/PTDC/EEA-ENE/66855/2006 Project.
The authors are with the Department of Industrial Electronics, University ductors to minimize Joule heating and poor thermal conductors
of Minho, 4800-058 Guimares, Portugal (e-mail: [email protected]; to retain the heat at the junction, and the Seebeck effect must
[email protected]; [email protected]). be maximized in order to produce the required voltage [13].
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. A tradeoff exists when a simultaneous optimization of these
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2009.2034686 three properties is pursued. The simple fact that the electrons
0278-0046/$26.00 2010 IEEE

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862 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 57, NO. 3, MARCH 2010

carry unwanted heat, as well as electric current, will make

the Seebeck effect decrease when the electrical conductivity
increases. The highest performance is obtained in the presence
of heavily doped semiconductors, such as bismuth telluride or
silicon germanium. In the case of semiconductors, the most
desirable situation is when the base materials are both n- and
p-doped in order to apply the same material system on both
sides of the junctions [12]. In addition, so that it will be inte-
grated in silicon microsystems, a thermoelectric generator must
be small in size, must be light in weight, and must have silicon
compatibility. Thin-film generators are the most suited ones for
microsystem applications because they give the advantage of
obtaining modules with minimum size and weight [13].
The integration of efficient solid-state thermoelectric micro-
converters with microelectronics is desirable for local cooling
and thermoelectric microgeneration because they can be used
to stabilize the temperature of devices, decrease noise levels,
and increase operation speed. Moreover, microthermoelectric
generators can be used in a lot of small low-power devices
such as hearing aids or wristwatches. This has been shown by
Seiko and Citizen with their commercialized thermoelectrically
driven low-power wristwatches [14]. Despite the range of excit-
ing applications, only few approaches to manufacture thermo-
electric devices with small dimensions have been reported up to
now [14][17].
Due to silicon fabrication compatibility, polycrystalline SiGe
alloys and polycrystalline Si are commonly used in thermopile
applications. Their use in microcoolers has been attempted, but
the performance is very low compared with that of tellurium
compounds, which have been used for many years in conven-
tional large-area cooling devices [18]. Tellurium compounds
(n-type bismuth telluride Bi2 Te3 and p-type antimony telluride
Sb2 Te3 ) are well-established room-temperature thermoelectric
materials and are widely employed by the industry in conven-
tional thermoelectric generators and coolers. Different deposi-
tion techniques were tried to obtain thin films of these materials.
Thermal coevaporation, cosputtering, electrochemical deposi-
tion, metalorganic chemical vapor deposition, and flash evap-
oration are some examples. The fabrication of thermoelectric
energy scavenging microsystems with tellurium alloys allows
powering small electronic devices (up to units of milliwatts)
under temperature gradients below 10 C.
The performance of thermoelectric devices depends on the
Fig. 2. Fabrication steps of the thermoelectric microconverter.
figure of merit (ZT ) of the material [19], which is given by

2 II. FABRICATION
ZT = T (1)
Two different approaches can be used for on-chip integration
of thermoelectric devices: transversal (cross-plane) and lateral
where is the Seebeck coefficient, is the electrical (in-plane), depending on the direction in which the energy is
resistivity, is the thermal conductivity, and T is the removed, relative to the surface of the device. In this paper,
temperature. lateral heat flow is addressed due to its easier fabrication
In this paper, films with high figure of merit were deposited process and compliance with planar technology. Fig. 2 shows
by coevaporation, and low-cost wet-etching techniques were the fabrication process of thermoelectric microconverters. The
used to pattern thermoelectric microconverters. These micro- p-type Sb2 Te3 film is deposited by thermal coevaporation,
converters were used in thermoelectric energy scavenging sys- followed by a thin layer (100 nm) of nickel (a). The use of
tems to work as energy sources for low-powered devices such thin layers of nickel helps one to avoid diffusion of the ther-
as microsensor systems, where a temperature difference exists moelectric material into the next deposited layers. Photoresist
between the two surfaces of the microgenerator. is spun, and p-type elements are patterned by photolithography

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CARMO et al.: THERMOELECTRIC MICROCONVERTER FOR ENERGY HARVESTING SYSTEMS 863

Fig. 4. (Left) Photograph of n- and p-type elements before the deposition of

the top contacts. (Right) Photograph of a thermoelectric microconverter with
eight pairs of thermoelectric elements, fabricated with the bottom contacts.

TABLE I
Fig. 3. (a) Coevaporation system. (b) Boats and mass sensors placed inside P ROPERTIES OF THE S ELECTED S AMPLES OF Bi2 Te3 F ILMS
the codeposition chamber.

(b)(c). Nickel is etched in a chromium etchant (Transene

1020), a thermoelectric film is patterned by wet etching in
HNO3:HCl (d), and the photoresist is removed. The n-type
film is then deposited by coevaporation, followed by a 100-nm
nickel layer (e). The photoresist is applied and patterned by
photolithography for n-type element definition (f)(g). Nickel
is etched in a chromium etchant (Transene 1020), the n-type
film is etched in HNO3 (h), and the photoresist is removed (i).
Contacts are deposited, starting with a 100-nm layer of nickel, TABLE II
followed by 1 m of aluminum (j). The photoresist is spun, P ROPERTIES OF THE S ELECTED S AMPLES OF Sb2 Te3 F ILMS
and contacts are patterned by photolithography (k). Nickel is
etched in a chromium etchant (Transene 1020), while aluminum
is etched in a standard aluminum etchant (Transene type A).
The photoresist is removed (l). A protective layer of Si3 N4 can
also be deposited by low-temperature hot-wire chemical vapor
deposition (HW-CVD) and patterned if required, depending on
the application.

etchant (pure HNO3 and 37% HCl diluted in water). Fig. 4

A. Deposition of Thin Films
shows a planar thermoelectric microconverter fabricated on
Thermoelectric films were fabricated by the thermal coevap- top of a 25-m-thick Kapton foil. As shown in that figure,
oration technique (Fig. 3) in a high-vacuum chamber (with a the contacts can be deposited on the top or bottom of the
base pressure of 1 106 torr). Two large molybdenum boats thermoelectric films. Because Bi2 Te3 and Sb2 Te3 adhesion is
(baffled boxes with a volume of 4 cm3 ) are used at the same higher on polyimide (Kapton) films than that on nickel metal
time, i.e., one for each of the elementary materials required to pads, the use of the top-contact process (as shown in Fig. 2)
produce the desired compound. avoids the need of depositing additional layers to promote the
The power applied to each boat is controlled indepen- adhesion of thermoelectric films.
dently, using two computed proportionalintegralderivative
controllers [20] to maintain the deposition rate at user-defined
III. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
constant values, during the deposition process. Two thickness
monitors (quartz crystal oscillators) are carefully placed inside The in-plane film electrical resistance was measured using
the chamber in such a way that each of them receives the the conventional four-probe van der Pauw method at room
material only from the boat that it is monitoring. A metal sheet temperature. The thermal conductivity was measured using the
is placed between the two boats to prevent the mixing of both method proposed by Vlklein [21]. The values of 1.3 and
materials at the quartz crystal sensors. Substrates are heated to 1.8 W m1 K1 were obtained for the Bi2 Te3 and Sb2 Te3
the temperature set point (Tsub ) in the range of 150 C270 C. films, respectively. The measurements of the Seebeck coeffi-
cient were made by connecting one side of the film to a fixed
temperature (heated metal block) and the other side to a heat
B. Patterning
sink at room temperature. Tables I and II show the results
Thermoelectric Bi2 Te3 and Sb2 Te3 thin films (1 m thick) of these measurements in the selected samples of Bi2 Te3 and
were deposited on the Kapton substrate. Transenes PKP neg- Sb2 Te3 films.
ative photoresist was applied on the surface, and test struc- In both tables, the first column lists the number of the
tures were patterned by wet etching in the HNO3 : HCl : H2 O selected sample, the second column contains the values of

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864 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 57, NO. 3, MARCH 2010

Seebeck coefficient , and the third column has the electrical

resistivity of the films. The fourth column lists the P F for
the selected samples of Bi2 Te3 and Sb2 Te3 , whose values were
calculated using the following:

P F = 2 / [W K1 m2 ]. (2)

It must be noted that, behind the figure of merit (ZT ), power

factor P F (in watts per kelvin per square meter) is perhaps the
most important value in a thermoelectric converter and gives
the electric power versus the area where the heat flow happens,
plus the temperature gradient between the hot and cold sides.
Moreover, Tables I and II present the corresponding figures of Fig. 5. Open-circuit output voltage and power of a 1-cm2 Bi2 Te3 Sb2 Te3
thermoelectric generator, plotted as a function of the length of the column.
merit (ZT ), which were calculated from (1).
In-plane electrical resistivity, carrier concentration, and Hall
mobility were measured at room temperature using the con-
ventional four-probe van der Pauw geometry. A dc magnetic
field of 80 mT was applied for Hall measurements. Seebeck
coefficient was measured by connecting one side of the
film to a heated metal block at a fixed temperature and the
other side to a heat sink kept at room temperature, with a Fig. 6. Schematic of a simple step-up circuit.
temperature difference between both sides below 10 C. A
spot of 5 mm 5 mm is considered for electrical properties. to the human-body and heat-sink thermal loads. The maximum
Thermal conductivity was measured using the technique devel- voltage output is obtained when the thermal resistance of the
oped in [21]. The measurements made in the selected samples thermoelectric legs is equal to the heat-sink and human-body
showed an absolute value of the Seebeck coefficient in the range thermal resistances. A thermal resistance of 200 K W1
of 150250 V K1 and an in-plane electrical resistivity of cm2 is desirable in the thermoelectric microconverter. Because
715 m. each thermoelectric junction of Bi2 Te3 Sb2 Te3 can deliver an
In a conventional thermoelectric element, the effect of elec- output voltage of 300 V K1 , more than 4000 junctions
trical contact on the interface with the metal is usually not are necessary to obtain an output voltage (without load) of
taken into consideration, which is acceptable, as the contact 10 V under a temperature difference of 10 C. Fig. 5 shows
between the two conductors is significantly smaller than the the open-circuit voltage and power that can be obtained in a
electrical resistance of the thermoelements [22]. The influence 1-cm2 Bi2 Te3 Sb2 Te3 thermoelectric generator, when the
of electrical contact resistance cannot be disregarded in on-chip length of the columns is up to 10 mm. The maximum power
integrated thermoelectric devices due to the size of the contact output is obtained with a column length of 4 mm.
relative to the length of the thermoelectric converter [23]. For
comparison, the contact area of a conventional thermoelement
IV. A PPLICATIONS
is on the order of 1 1 mm2 , while that of the integrated
thermoelement is on the order of 10 10 m2 (i.e., an area Energy-harvested wireless sensors must be powered in a
reduction of 104 ). Electrical contacts are made at both the hot peak basis because a temperature gradient could not be present
and cold junctions of the device. Because the hot junctions are always; thus, energy must be stored in a capacitor (storage
considered to be in direct contact with the ambient, the Joule capacitor) for later use by the electronic system to be powered
heat generated in these junctions is absorbed locally and does [9] or in a rechargeable microbattery of Li-ion type (integrated
not affect the maximum temperature difference. However, the in the system) [25]. In both cases, an ultralow power electronics
Joule heat generated due to the electrical contact at the cold performs dcdc rectification with a variable conversion factor.
junctions has to travel through the entire length of the device Fig. 6 shows a simple step-up converter. The step-up conversion
to reach the ambient [22]. The contact resistance between the is made with the help of capacitor Cup and inductor Lup . The
thermoelectric material and the metallic contact was measured current at the output of the thermoelectric microdevice charges
with the help of the transmission-line model method [24]. The this capacitor, and then, the switch (SW) is systematically
measurements shown for the n- and p-type materials are max- closed and open with a high frequency. However, it remains
imum contact resistivities of 2 107 and 5 107 m2 , closed during a very short time in order to reduce the losses.
respectively. In order to meet this requirement, the command signal must
The measurements also shown for the Bi2 Te3 and Sb2 Te3 have a very low duty cycle to avoid the overdischarge of
films are figures of merit (ZT ) at room temperature of 0.84 and capacitor Cup . When SW opens, the stored energy in inductor
0.5 and power factors P F 103 [W K1 m2 ] of 4.87 and Lup forces capacitor Cup to discharge through diode D, e.g.,
2.81, respectively. a dc rectification is present. Then, the current charges high-
Using thermoelectric converters for human-body energy har- charge-capacity capacitor Cstore , which further connects to a
vesting requires the generator thermal resistance to be matched dc regulator.

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CARMO et al.: THERMOELECTRIC MICROCONVERTER FOR ENERGY HARVESTING SYSTEMS 865

Fig. 8 shows the full block diagram of the wireless EEG

module and the thermoelectric module, where the electrode
connected to an amplifier can be seen, followed by an analog-
to-digital converter (ADC). In order to meet the EEG speci-
fications, the amplifier was designed to have enough gain to
amplify signals with amplitudes of only 70 V. The ADC must
have at least a resolution of 22 b and a minimum sampling
frequency of 2000 Hz.
Plug-and-play wireless EEG modules were previously
demonstrated by the authors [27]. In this paper, a thermoelectric
generator with CP and dcdc conversion is proposed. Fig. 9
shows an artist impression of the thermoelectric energy scav-
enging system and a wireless EEG module, both attached to a
cap (the zoomed-in part in the figure). The temperature gradient
between the forehead and the environment will generate energy
Fig. 7. Photograph of the CP, followed by the step-up. in the thermoelectric microdevice to supply the modules.

Because the target goals for the proposed thermoelectric

microconverter are biomedical applications, a more compact V. C ONCLUSION AND F UTURE W ORK
solution for the power circuit is mandatory. Using discrete but This paper has presented a thermoelectric microconverter to
still compact solution, the first circuit prototype was mounted supply low-power electronics, where the power consumption
to make the step-up conversion [5]. Fig. 7 shows such a circuit, ranges from hundredths of microwatts to a few milliwatts.
which is composed by a charge pump (CP), followed by a The microconverter is made of thermoelectric structures based
dcdc step-up converter. When the voltage at the output of the on thin films of n-type bismuth telluride (Bi2 Te3 ) and p-type
thermoelectric device rises above a certain value (in this circuit, antimony telluride (Sb2 Te3 ). The measurements have shown
the chosen voltage was 300 mV), the CP activates an output that the deposited films present thermoelectric properties that
pin that will activate the dcdc step-up circuit. In this situation, are comparable to those reported for the same materials in
a short circuit is established between the thermoelectric device bulk form, as is the case of the materials used in conventional
and the input of the dcdc step-up. Then, the step-up puts a macroscale Peltier modules. The absolute values of the Seebeck
regulated IC-compatible voltage to supply the electronics. The coefficient are in the 150250-V K1 range, and the in-
measurements made in this prototype showed that, when the plane electrical resistivity is in the 715- m range. The
voltage at the output of the thermoelectric microdevice crosses measurements also shown for the Bi2 Te3 and Sb2 Te3 films are
above 300 mV, then the output of CP will enable the step-up, the figures of merit (ZT ) at room temperature of 0.84 and 0.5
which will increase the voltage up to 3 V. and power factors P F 103 [W K1 m2 ] of 4.87 and 2.81,
respectively. The proposed converter uses the Seebeck effect for
doing the thermoelectric conversion, using microsystem tech-
A. Wireless EEG as a Biomedical Application
niques and suitable to be integrated with electronics. The target
Temperatures ranging from 27 C to 36 C can be found in applications for this thermoelectric microconverter include the
different parts of a body. However, higher temperature gradient wireless EEG and use the temperature gradient between the
in relation to the ambient is found in the forehead and nose. ambient and the forehead to supply the wireless modules.
Standard wireless electroencephalograms (EEGs) use a brain Future research will pursue the operation from low-
cap with wires running from the electrode position to a bulky temperature gradients (a minimum temperature difference of
central unity (amplification, signal filtering, and analog-to- 3 C between the ambient and the thermosource must provide
digital conversion) [26]. A more interesting solution is to use an IC-compatible voltage). Today, the best commercial thermo-
compact wireless EEG modules, where the electronics, antenna, electric modules (made of Bi, Sb, and Te compounds) have a
and each electrode are mounted together. The power supply of ZT of one, despite the many approaches to find compounds
such modules is obtained locally from the thermoelectric gener- with high performance. In conventional 3-D crystalline sys-
ator. This solution allows one to integrate additional electronics tems, it is difficult to control each of the following interrelated
(amplification, filtering, and high-resolution digital conversion) factors to improve ZT [28]: Seebeck voltage per unit of tem-
for local signal processing inside these small-size individual perature, electrical conductivity, and thermal conductivity. This
wireless EEG modules. means that an increase of Seebeck voltage per unit temperature
It is possible to use either bipolar or unipolar electrodes in the usually results in a decrease of electrical conductivity. More-
EEG measurement. In the first method, the potential difference over, a decrease of electrical conductivity leads to a decrease
between a pair of electrodes is measured, but an electrode of electronic contribution to thermal conductivity, following
placed in a reference position is needed for all modules. In the the WiedemannFranz law. However, if the dimensionality of
second method, the potential of each electrode is compared, the material is decreased, the new variable of length scale
either to a neutral (the reference) electrode or to the average becomes available for the control of material properties due
of all electrodes. to the differences in the density of electronic states. A recent

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866 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 57, NO. 3, MARCH 2010

Fig. 8. System architecture behind the wireless autonomous EEG system powered by the body heat recovered with the proposed thermoelectric microconverter.

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CARMO et al.: THERMOELECTRIC MICROCONVERTER FOR ENERGY HARVESTING SYSTEMS 867

[24] G. K. Reeves and H. B. Harrison, Obtaining the specific contact re- Luis Miguel Gonalves received the B.S. and M.Sc.
sistance from transmission line model measurements, IEEE Electron degrees in industrial electronics engineering and
Device Lett., vol. EDL-3, no. 5, pp. 111113, May 1982. the Ph.D. degree from the University of Minho,
[25] M. A. Alahmad and H. L. Hess, Evaluation and analysis of a new solid- Guimares, Portugal, in 1993 and 1999, respectively.
state rechargeable microscale lithium battery, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., His Ph.D. thesis was on thermoelectric microsystems
vol. 55, no. 9, pp. 33913401, Sep. 2008. for on-chip cooling and energy harvesting.
[26] IMEC press releases, ambulatory EEG, human ++ EU project, From 1993 to 2002, he researched embedded sys-
pp. 12, 2003. tems and electronics at the Institute for Develop-
[27] J. P. Carmo, N. S. Dias, H. R. Silva, P. M. Mendes, C. Couto, and ment and Technological Innovation of Minho, Braga,
J. H. Correia, A 2.4-GHz low-power/low-voltage wireless plug-and-play Portugal, an institute that was built through a joint
module for EEG applications, IEEE Sensors J., vol. 7, no. 11, pp. 1524 initiative of the University of Minho and industry.
1531, Nov. 2007. Since 2002, he has been a Lecturer in the Department of Industrial Electronics,
[28] D. Hicks and M. S. Dresselhaus, Effect of quantum-well structures on the University of Minho. There, he started a new laboratory on thermoelectric
thermoelectric figure of merit, Phys. Rev. B, Condens. Matter, vol. 47, thin-film deposition, characterization, and patterning in collaboration with
no. 19, pp. 12 72712 731, May 15, 1993. the Department of Physics. His professional interests are thin-film devices
[29] R. Venkatasubramanian, E. Siivola, T. Colpitts, and B. OQuinn, Thin- for thermoelectric energy applications, micromachining and microfabrication
film thermoelectric devices with high room-temperature figures of merit, technology, and solid-state integrated microsystems.
Nature, vol. 413, no. 6856, pp. 597602, Oct. 11, 2001.
[30] H. Bttner, G. Chen, and R. Venkatasubramanian, Aspects of thin-film
superlattice thermoelectric materials, devices, and applications, MRS
Bull., vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 211217, Mar. 2006.

Joo Paulo Carmo (S02M08) was born in Maia, Jos Higino Correia (S96M00) received the B.S.
Portugal, in 1970. He received the B.S. and M.Sc. degree in physical engineering from the University
degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal, in 1990, and the
of Porto, Porto, Portugal, in 1993 and 2002, respec- Ph.D. degree from the Electronic Instrumentation
tively, and the Ph.D. degree in industrial electronics Laboratory, Delft University of Technology, Delft,
from the University of Minho, Guimares, Portugal, The Netherlands, in 1999, working in the field of
in 2007. His Ph.D. thesis was on RF transceivers for microsystems for optical spectral analysis.
integration in microsystems to be used in wireless He is currently a Full Professor in the Depart-
sensor network applications. ment of Industrial Electronics, University of Minho,
Since 2008, he has been an Assistant Researcher Guimares, Portugal. His professional interests are
at the Algoritmi Center, University of Minho, micromachining and microfabrication technology
where he is also currently with the Department of Industrial Electronics. for mixed-mode systems, solid-state integrated sensors, microactuators, and
He is involved in research on micro-/nanofabrication technologies for microsystems.
mixed-mode/RF systems, solid-state integrated sensors, microactuators, and Prof. Correia is a member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. He
micro-/nanodevices for use in wireless and biomedical applications. was the General Chairman of Eurosensors 2003 and Micromechanics and
Dr. Carmo is a member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. Microengineering Europe 2007 held in Guimares.

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