Sensor Innovation Prize for Technology from Dresden

the “SENSOR Innovation Prize 2008” of the AMA Fachverband für Sensorik e.V. (AMA Special Association for Sensor Technology, non-profit) in Nuremberg on occasion of the SENSOR+TEST fair.

With its infrared detector, the development team Dr. Norbert Neumann from InfraTec GmbH, Dr. Karla Hiller from the Center for Microtechnologies (ZfM) at the Chemnitz University of Technology and Dr. Steffen Kurth from the Chemnitz Section of the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability was able to prevail over 24 competitors and receive the €10,000 prize from the hands of the President of the AMA Fachverband and the jury.

The centerpiece of the innovation is a micromechanical Fabry-Perot interferometer for the spectral range of 3...5 µm that is installed in a TO8 housing as a tunable filter with a pyroelectrical infrared detector. The jury’s reasoning pointed out: With the now available system developed in volume-micromechanics, it has, for the first time, become possible, by consistently optimizing its structure and process control, to implement a capable module of sound spectral resolution and high-grade optical quality that can widely be applied in fields ranging from environmental via safety-related to medical technologies.

In recent years, this development has been co-funded by Sächsische AufbauBank (Saxon Development Bank) within the framework of the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRE) and by the Free State of Saxony. Further developments are to be implemented within the incentive programs “Optical Technologies” and “Research for Tomorrow’s Production” of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research involving further industrial partners from all over Germany.