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Introduction
to Sensors
Introduction
to Sensors
John Vetelino
Aravind Reghu
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
© 2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
No claim to original U.S. Government works
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
International Standard Book Number: 978-1-4398-0852-8 (Hardback)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vetelino, John.
Introduction to sensors / authors, John Vetelino, Aravind Reghu.
p. cm.
“A CRC title.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4398-0852-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Detectors. I. Reghu, Aravind. II. Title.
TK7872.D48V48 2010
681’.2--dc22 2009045582
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Contents
Preface ......................................................................................................................ix
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................xi
The Authors ......................................................................................................... xiii
1. Introduction .....................................................................................................1
1.1 Background ............................................................................................1
1.2 The Human Body as a Sensor System................................................2
1.3 Sensors in an Automobile ....................................................................4
1.4 Classification of Sensors.......................................................................9
1.5 Example of a Gas Sensor: The Taguchi Sensor ............................... 10
1.6 The Sensor as a Passive or Active Element...................................... 14
1.7 The Sensor as Part of a Measurement System ................................ 15
1.8 Sensor Properties ................................................................................ 16
1.9 Historical Development of Sensors .................................................. 20
1.10 Sensor System ...................................................................................... 23
References ....................................................................................................... 25
Questions ........................................................................................................ 25
2. Electrochemical Sensors.............................................................................. 27
2.1 Background .......................................................................................... 27
2.2 Conductimetric Sensors ..................................................................... 28
2.3 Semiconducting Metal Oxide Sensors ............................................. 32
2.3.1 Background............................................................................. 32
2.3.2 Electrical Properties of the Metal Oxide
Semiconductor ........................................................................34
2.3.2.1 Intrinsic and Extrinsic Metal Oxide
Semiconductor ........................................................34
2.3.2.2 Metal Oxide Surface............................................... 37
2.3.2.3 Surface or Space Charge Capacitance ................. 41
2.3.2.4 Accumulation and Inversion Layer .....................43
2.3.2.5 Surface States and Surface Conductivity ............44
2.3.2.6 Metal Oxide Semiconductor Film Structure ...... 45
2.3.2.7 Gas-Semiconductor Film Interactions ................. 50
2.4 Chemiresistors ..................................................................................... 61
2.5 Other Solid-State Electrochemical Gas Sensors .............................64
2.5.1 Background.............................................................................64
2.5.2 Solid-State Capacitive Gas Sensors......................................64
2.5.2.1 The MOS Capacitive Gas Sensor ..........................65
2.5.2.2 Micromachine Capacitive Polymer Gas
Sensor ....................................................................... 67
v
vi Contents
2.5.3 Schottky Diode Type Gas Sensor ........................................ 68

2.6 Concluding Remarks .......................................................................... 69
References ....................................................................................................... 71
Questions ........................................................................................................ 73
3. Piezoelectric Sensors ...................................................................................77

3.1 Introduction .........................................................................................77
3.2 Classification of Piezoelectric Sensors ............................................. 79
3.3 Piezoelectric Materials as Intelligent or Smart Materials ............. 79
3.4 The Piezoelectric Effect ...................................................................... 81
3.5 The Properties of Nonpiezoelectric and Piezoelectric
Materials ...............................................................................................84
3.5.1 Mechanical Properties of Nonpiezoelectric Materials .....84
3.5.2 Electrical Properties of Nonpiezoelectric Materials ......... 88
3.5.3 Electrical and Mechanical Properties of Piezoelectric
Materials.................................................................................. 89
3.5.4 The Piezoelectric Coupling Coefficient ..............................90
3.6 Piezoelectric Stress/Pressure Sensor ............................................... 92
3.6.1 Determination of the Magnitude of the Sensing
Element Response in the Measurand Range for
Different Piezoelectric Materials ......................................... 92
3.6.2 Equivalent Circuit for the Sensing Element ....................... 94
3.6.3 Time Response for the Stress/Pressure Sensor ................. 95
3.6.4 Signal Conditioning System to Interface the Sensing
Element Response to the Observer...................................... 97
3.6.4.1 Sensing Element Output Interfaced Directly
to the Display Device ............................................. 97
3.6.4.2 Sensing Element Interfaced to a Charge
Amplifier and a Display Device ........................... 99
3.6.5 The Choice of the Piezoelectric Material for the
Sensing Element ................................................................... 100
3.6.6 Sensor Construction ............................................................ 102
3.6.6.1 Piezoelectric Mechanical Force Sensor ............. 102
3.6.6.2 Piezoelectric Pressure Sensor ............................. 102
3.7 Piezoelectric Accelerometer............................................................. 105
3.8 Active Piezoelectric Sensors ............................................................ 110
3.9 Bulk Acoustic Wave Sensor ............................................................. 113
3.10 Bulk Acoustic Wave Sensor Response Measurement .................. 118
3.11 Surface Acoustic Wave Sensors ....................................................... 125
References ..................................................................................................... 128
Questions ...................................................................................................... 128
Contents vii
4. Fiber Optic Sensors .................................................................................... 131

4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................... 131
4.2 Background ........................................................................................ 131
4.3 Theory ................................................................................................. 134
4.4 Light Leaking and Absorption in the Fiber Optic Link .............. 135
4.5 Fiber Link and Materials.................................................................. 137
4.6 Communication Applications ......................................................... 138
4.7 Fiber Optic Sensors ........................................................................... 140
4.7.1 Fiber Optic Probes ............................................................... 140
References ..................................................................................................... 145
Questions ...................................................................................................... 145
5. Thermal Sensors ......................................................................................... 147

5.1 Introduction ....................................................................................... 147
5.2 Resistance Thermometers ................................................................ 147
5.3 Theory of Metal-Based Thermometers .......................................... 148
5.4 Properties of Metal-Based Thermometers ..................................... 151
5.5 Theory of Semiconductor-Based Thermometers .......................... 152
5.6 Thermistor Properties ...................................................................... 154
5.7 Concluding Remarks ........................................................................ 155
References ..................................................................................................... 156
Questions ...................................................................................................... 156
6. Magnetic Sensors........................................................................................ 159

6.1 Introduction ....................................................................................... 159
6.2 Natural and Man-Made Magnetic Fields ...................................... 160
6.3 Materials Used in Magnetic Sensors .............................................. 161
6.4 Principles of Magnetic Sensors ....................................................... 162
6.5 Solid-State Magnetic Sensors .......................................................... 166
References ..................................................................................................... 170
Questions ...................................................................................................... 170
Index ..................................................................................................................... 171

Preface
This book came about as a result of a need to present fundamental material to

undergraduate and graduate engineering and science students in the general
area of sensors. The initial funding for the development of the book came from a
National Science Foundation (NSF) grant relating to the integration of emerging
technologies such as sensors into engineering and science curricula. Coincident
with the NSF grant, sensors became an area of critical need fueled by terrorist
actions such as 9/11, national defense, and the health and security of the general
public. A course entitled “Introduction to Sensors” was then introduced, and
course notes were developed and distributed to students taking the course.
The first chapter introduces students to the fundamentals of sensors
independent of the underlying technology. Terms such as sensor signature,
receiver operating characteristics, and the specific sensor properties are
defined and discussed. The human body and the automobile are treated as
entities that utilize a multiplicity of sensors. Finally, a complete sensor sys-
tem that includes the preparation phase, the sensing element and platform,
and appropriate electronics resulting in a digital readout is presented.
In the second chapter solid-state electronic sensors whose response relates
to electricity and chemistry are presented. The major focus of this chapter is
the metal oxide semiconducting sensor commonly referred to as the Taguchi
sensor. A brief overview of energy band theory as applied to a metal oxide
film is presented. The gas-film redox reactions are discussed relative to gas
sensing by the film along with the effect of film structure, dopant, and tem-
perature on the sensor response. The chapter concludes with a brief discus-
sion of solid-state electronic sensors such as the metal oxide semiconductor
(MOS) capacitor, the micromachined capacitive polymer, and the Schottky
diode sensors.
The third chapter is devoted to piezoelectric sensors. The basic theory
associated with piezoelectricity is described using the two-dimensional
hexagonal lattice as an example. The fundamental relationship between
stress, strain, electric field, and electric displacement is presented for both
nonpiezoelectric and piezoelectric crystals. An in-depth design of a passive
piezoelectric force/pressure sensor is presented with specific applications
given. The principle of operation of an accelerometer is presented along with
specific applications. The chapter concludes with material relating to active
piezoelectric sensors. In particular, the standard quartz crystal monitor
(QCM) is discussed along with the lateral field excited (LFE) acoustic wave
sensor developed at the University of Maine. Specific advantages and dis-
advantages of the QCM and LFE sensors are discussed along with specific
sensor applications. Finally, a brief discussion of the surface acoustic wave
sensor is presented.
ix
x Preface
The last three chapters relate to thermal, fiber optic, and magnetic sensors.
A brief discussion of the theory underlying each sensor technology is pre-
sented followed by specific sensor applications. Relative to thermal sensors,
both the resistive thermal device (RTD) and thermistor are discussed. The
fiber optic sensor is presented with specific applications such as embedded
sensors. The magnetic sensors presented are used to determine measurands
such as the magnetic field and semiconductor properties such as carrier con-
centration and mobility.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, the authors thank the large number of colleagues and
undergraduate and graduate students associated with the Laboratory for
Surface Science and Technology and the Electrical and Computer Engineering
Department at the University of Maine who made significant contributions.
In particular, special thanks are extended to Dean Smith and Zhimin Xu
for their valuable contribution relating to the electrical behavior of metal
oxide films exposed to the ambient and various target gases. Thanks are
also extended to Dr. Todd Mlsna for his input relating to micromachined
capacitive polymer gas sensors. Relative to the piezoelectric sensors, the
authors owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Ryszard Lec for his valuable input
relating to passive piezoelectric sensors such as the stress/pressure sensor
and the accelerometer. Thanks are also extended to Dr. Chao Zhang, Y. Hu,
Lester French, Don McCann, Mitchell Wark, Jason McGann, Dr. Jeff Andle,
Dr. Robert Falconer, Dr. George Bernhardt, Dr. David Frankel, and Dr. David
Kotecki for their valuable input relating to active piezoelectric sensors such
as the quartz crystal monitor (QCM), the lateral field excited (LFE) sensor,
and the monolithic spiral coil sensor.
The book would not have been possible without the dedicated time and effort
expended by Barbara Deschane, Susan Niles, and Laura Hall in its preparation.
Finally, John F. Vetelino extends a special thanks to his wife, Leah, and
sons, Kevin and Jay, for their constant moral support, which provided moti-
vation and encouragement in the preparation of this book. Aravind Reghu
expresses his gratitude to his wife, Anusha, his parents, Reghu and Geetha,
and his brother, Gautham, for their love and support.
xi
The Authors
John F. Vetelino, IEEE Fellow, earned his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in electri-
cal engineering from the University of Rhode Island in 1964, 1966, and 1969,
respectively. He has been with the University of Maine since 1969 and is cur-
rently professor of electrical and computer engineering. He was one of the
founding members of the Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology at the
University of Maine and currently is the leader of the solid-state sensor group.
His research group is working on chemical and biological sensors based
on acoustic wave and chemiresistive technology. In 1976, he was at the Max
Planck Institute Fuer Festkorperforschung in Stuttgart, West Germany,
working on solid-state properties of piezoelectric crystals. In 1980, he was
awarded the Presidential Research Achievement Award, given annually to
the outstanding researcher at the University of Maine. From 1983 to 1987, he
was chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of
Maine. In 2008 he received the Distinguished Maine Professor award.
Dr. Vetelino has given invited talks at many universities both in the United
States and abroad, at national and international conferences. He also has
published several invited papers and received outstanding paper awards at
the International Chemical Sensors meeting, the Society of Plastic Engineers
Conference, and the IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium. He was a guest editor
of the special issue of the IEEE UFFC Transactions on Sensors and Actuators
in 1998. He currently is a member of the technical program committee for
the IEEE Ultrasonics group. Four sensor companies—BIODE Corporation in
Westbrook, Maine; Microsensor Conversion Technology in Brookings, South
Dakota; Sensor Research and Development Corporation in Orono, Maine;
and Mainely Sensors, LLC in Orono, Maine—have been incubated from his
research group. He is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Xi, Tau Beta Pi, and
Eta Kappa Nu. Dr. Vetelino has advised over 40 graduate students to MS and
PhD degrees and has published over 200 scientific papers.
Aravind Reghu completed his bachelors degree in electronics and commu-

nications engineering from the University of Calicut in India and his mas-
ters in electrical engineering from the University of Maine. He is currently
pursuing his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Maine. His
area of research is in the field of metal oxide sensors, where he is designing
and developing a prototype tool for in situ sampling of ice core chemistry
utilizing innovative thin-film metal oxide gas sensor technology. The thin-
film metal oxide sensor being designed can be used to identify gases like
methane and carbon dioxide. The author has also been involved in a number
of projects in the fields of microwave engineering, very large scale integrated
(VLSI) circuit design, and microelectronics.
xiii
1
Introduction
1.1 Background
Sensors dominate the world in which we live. We are awakened in the
morning by an alarm clock and proceed to breakfast in our home, which
has smoke detectors. Our breakfast is often prepared with the aid of tim-
ing devices, and temperature sensors tell us when the food is ready to
eat. We then proceed to go to work in our automobile, which may have
more than 50 different sensors helping in the operation and control of
the vehicle. At our workplace we are surrounded by sensors that can be
very simple, such as temperature and humidity sensors. Other workplace
sensors are quite complex, such as sensors to detect potential explosives,
metal objects, etc. If our work requires travel, then we encounter a wide
spectrum of sensors in the detection of a variety of objects that may be on
our person or in a suitcase.
In addition to sensors relating directly to the individual, a whole list
of sensors exist on local, state, national, and global levels. For example,
traffic signals in your town are often controlled by sensors. At the state
level, a variety of sensors help us in terms of waste management and
water quality. Sensors are present at a national level and are critical to
the security of our homeland. On a global level, sensors exist to measure
quantities such as ozone and pollutants that may be present in interna-
tional waters.
In recent years, the complexity of advancing technology, the ever-increasing
world population, and the emergence of terrorist-related activities have
heightened the need for new types of sensors. Depending upon the particu-
lar application, the design, fabrication, testing, and eventual use of the sen-
sors requires a wide variety of both technical and nontechnical expertise. As
a result, sensors have become an emerging technology that prevails in the
world in which we live.
1
2 Introduction to Sensors
1.2 The Human Body as a Sensor System

The human body serves as one of the best examples of a complex system
that contains a wide variety of sensors capable of sensitively and selectively
detecting a wide variety of quantities or measurands. The most familiar sen-
sors in the human body are those that relate to vision, hearing, smell, taste,
and feel.
The human eye can detect both small and large objects that may be sta-
tionary or in motion. The eye may also detect very subtle variations in color
or shape. A classic example of this is the recognition of a human face. The
recognition of a familiar face in a large crowd truly emphasizes the selectiv-
ity embodied in the vision system. The human vision system does, however,
have a finite dynamic range, which is determined by the visible part of the
electromagnetic spectrum, namely, from wavelengths of 4,100 Å (violet) to
6,600 Å (red). This represents a frequency range from 7.32 × 1014 cycles per
second (cps) to 4.55 × 1014 cps. Considering that the electromagnetic spectrum
has a range of over 1020 cps, visible light represents a very small part of the
spectrum.
The human ear is an example of a very sensitive sensor with a limited
dynamic range. In particular, the ear is capable of detecting sound levels as
low as 10−12 Watts/m2 (0 db) and as high as 1 W/m2 (120 db), which is the
threshold of pain. The frequency range for the ear is limited to 20 Hz to
20 kHz. This represents only a small portion of the sound wave spectrum,
which covers a range of over 1013 Hz. It is well known that prolonged expo-
sure to high-intensity sound levels may produce serious ear damage. In fact,
noise pollution may contribute to anxiety, nervousness, and high blood pres-
sure. Some typical sound level intensities are given in Table 1.1. Prolonged
Table 1.1
Typical Sound Level Intensities
Source of Sound db Levela
Jet airplane 150
Jackhammer 130
Rock concert 120
Power mower 100
Vacuum cleaner 70
Normal conversation 50
Whisper 30
Rustling of leaves 10
Threshold of hearing 0
a db level = 10 log I/Io, where Io = 10–12 W/m2 (threshold of hearing).
Introduction 3
exposure to sound levels over 90 db is considered to be dangerous and ear

protection is recommended. This clearly points out the need for sound inten-
sity sensors, particularly in an industrial environment.
The human nose represents perhaps one of the most sensitive and selec-
tive sensors in the human body. The nose is capable of differentiating sub-
tle differences in odor such as may occur in different types of wine. The
nose can also detect various degrees of “freshness” that may occur in fish.
The limits of sensitivity of the nose are in the low parts per billion (ppb)
to the parts per million (ppm) level in air for a target gas. This sensitivity
level is better than that of many of the best commercially available gas
sensors.
Taste is not as sensitive or selective as the other familiar body sensors.
Although differences in levels of sweetness, sourness, and saltiness can be
detected in taste, people often confuse taste with odor. The true measure of
the taste sensor may be experienced if one has a cold. In this case, the inter-
ference from odor is eliminated.
The so-called feel sensor is usually associated with the hand, but can in
fact be located anywhere in the body. This sensor enables one to determine
such physical features as an object’s size, shape, roughness, and weight. In
recent years advances in robotics have resulted in the design and fabrication
of artificial feel sensors, such as robotic arms, hands, and fingers, which have
found widespread applications in industry.
In addition to the five common body sensors, other abstract sensors exist
in the human body that can affect the individual in a variety of different
ways. For example, the death of a loved one evokes a feeling of sadness in
an individual. Danger often evokes excitement, and overcoming an obstacle
may evoke pleasure or satisfaction.
Finally, the human body has a built-in defense or immune system that is
often triggered by sensors different from those already discussed. For exam-
ple, the invasion of the human body by antigens associated with a particular
disease or infection triggers the formation of antibodies, which then fight the
disease or infection.
The sensors within the human body, particularly the five principal sen-
sors, can be looked upon as real-time control systems. It is essential that
these control systems communicate accurately and effectively so the human
body can avoid dangers and perform satisfactorily. Ideally, we would like
our sensors to respond quickly, sensitively, and selectively to a particular
measurand. However, with a degradation in sensor operating accuracy or
function caused by factors such as misuse, age, or disease, it is then nec-
essary to make certain modifications to restore the sensor performance.
For example, deteriorating eyesight or hearing can be corrected with use
of glasses or hearing aids. These corrective measures then simply appear
in the feedback loop of the real-time control system associated with the
sensor.
1.3 Sensors in an Automobile

In a real-world system, such as an automobile, the ability of an electronic
control system to communicate accurately and effectively to the auto-
mobile operator is critical to the operation of the automobile. Since the
automobile has to be operating in concert with an outside world of sig-
nificant complexity, the need for reliable, effective, and accurate sensors is
extremely high.
In order to appreciate the need, diversity, and complexity of sensors
required in an automobile, it is interesting to briefly examine the systems
in an automobile in which sensors are used. In Figure 1.1, several potential
areas of the automobile in which sensors are used are highlighted. It can be
seen that the sensor functions may range from a simple sensing of oil pres-
sure, water temperature, and fuel level to the intensive control of the engine
and transmission to optimize economy and performance while minimizing
potentially dangerous emission effluents. In order to appreciate the exact-
ing specification and complexity of some automobile sensors, it is interest-
ing to examine the sensors appropriate for the engine and transmission,
or what is commonly referred to as the power train. Various power train
sensors and their required specifications are presented in Table 1.2. These
sensors are critical to the automobile performance and relate to engine
Electronic display instrument

cluster with driver diagnostics Multiplex ring-main
and message system electrical distribution
Electronic engine -Liquid levels and diagnostic
management system, -Bulb outage feedback system
controls ignition, fueling, -Door ajar
exhaust gas feedback and -Ice alert
control -Engine temperature
Electric headlamp
dip/dim
Traffic and road information

system
Electronic transmission control -Anti skid brakes
-Suspension control
Figure 1.1
(Please see color insert following page 146) Areas where sensors can be utilized in the automo-
bile. (From Westbrook, M. H., and Turner, J. D., Automotive Sensors, London: Institute of Physics
Publishing, 1994, 9. With permission.)
Introduction
Table 1.2
Optimized Specifications for Some Common Automotive Power Train Sensors
Temperature Response
Sensor/Type Proposed Sensing Method Range Accuracy Operating Range Time
Inlet manifold absolute or differential Piezoresistive silicon strain 0–105 kPa ±1% at –40 to + 125 °C 1 ms
pressure sensor (petrol engines) gauged diaphragm or 25°C
capacitive diaphragm
Inlet and exhaust manifold pressure sensor As above 20–200 kPa ±3% As above 10 ms
(diesel engines)
Transmission oil pressure sensor Differential transformer 0–2,000 kPa ±1% 40 to +160°C 10 ms
diaphragm or capacitive
diaphragm
Inlet manifold air temperature sensor Metal film or semiconductor –40 to 150°C ±2% or –40 to 150°C 20 ms
film ±5%
Coolant temperature sensor Thermistor 40 to +200°C ±2% As above 10 s
Ambient air temperature Thermistor 40 to +100°C As above –40 to +100°C As above
Distributor mounted timing/trigger/speed Hall effect or optical digitizer Zero to maximum ±1% –40 to +125°C N/A
sensor or eddy current engine speed
Road speed sensor (speedometer cable fitting) Optical digitizer or reed As above ±5% –40 to +125°C N/A
switch or Hall effect
Inlet manifold air mass flow (bidirectional) Ultrasonic or corona ±200 kg/h ±2% As above 1 ms
discharge or ion flow
Throttle position sensor Potentiometer 0–4 Ω from closed ±3% –40 to +125°C N/A
to open throttle
Gear selector position sensor Cam-operated switch or 8-position selection N/A or ±1 –40 to + 1 50 N/A
potentiometer or 0–5 kΩ 0°C
Gear selector hydraulic valve position sensor Optical encoder As above ±2% –40 to 100°C N/A
(Continued)
5
6
Table 1.2
Optimized Specifications for Some Common Automotive Power Train Sensors (Continued)
Temperature Response
Sensor/Type Proposed Sensing Method Range Accuracy Operating Range Time
Engine knock sensor Piezoelectric accelerometer 5–10 kHz g range N/A 40 to 125°C Depends on
TBE resonant
frequency
Exhaust gas oxygen sensor for stoichiometric Zirconium dioxide ceramic Less than one A/F Not known 300 to 850°C
operation with platinum surface ratio (used as a (tip operating
electrodes or titanium discs switch between temperature)
in aluminum lean and rich A/F
ratios)
Exhaust gas oxygen sensor for lean burn Zirconium dioxide oxygen 14:1 to 30:1 A/F TBE As above 5.0 ms
operation pumping device with heater ratio
Introduction to Sensors
Source: Westbrook, M. H., and Turner, J. D. 1994. Automotive sensors, 9. London: Institute of Physics Publishing. With permission.
Introduction 7
timing, manifold vacuum pressure and mass airflow, exhaust gas oxygen
level, transmission control valve position, transmission input and output
speed, and throttle and accelerator position. It can be seen that the require-
ments for parameters such as accuracy and operating temperature range
are exacting. In addition to meeting technical specifications, these sensors
must also meet space and weight requirements and be of minimal cost and
high reliability. To discuss each of the power train sensors in detail requires
background in such diverse areas as physics, chemistry, engineering, eco-
nomics, and politics.
The multidisciplinary nature of sensors can best be illustrated by
describing the development of gas sensors relating to the control of
the combustion mixtures in car engines. The goal of these sensors is to
decrease atmospheric pollution while increasing fuel economy. The initia-
tive in developing the combustion control gas sensors was prompted by a
political decision. In the early 1970s the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) of the United States legislated the Clean Air Act, which required
automobile manufacturers to reduce exhaust gases such as carbon monox-
ide (CO), hydrocarbons (CH x) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) by about 90%.
This requirement had to be satisfied by cars manufactured after the 1976
models. Several approaches were tried to satisfy this regulation. The ini-
tial approaches, which tried to optimize the fuel supply and the ignition
system, were not successful. The second approach involved converting the
polluting gases into inert species. This was done using thermal reactors
and catalytic converters. The objective was to oxidize CO and CH x and
reduce NOx.
This was achieved by recycling NOx through the engine. The economic
impact of this approach was negative in that it increased automobile produc-
tion costs significantly and the fuel economy decreased.
Material problems relating to the difficulties encountered in disposing
of reliable and inexpensive refractory materials in thermal reactors caused
the industry to look toward catalytic converters. The approach using cata-
lytic converters solves the oxidation of CO and CH x and reduces NOx to
transform all polluting constituents into harmless byproducts. However,
the three-way catalytic converter is effective only if the engine is fed with
near-stoichiometric air/fuel (A/F) mixtures. A stoichiometric A/F mix-
ture is one in which the combustion of the gasoline is ideal. Too much air
results in a lean mixture, while too much gasoline results in a rich mix-
ture. This A/F mixture requirement thus created an immediate market
for an A/F sensor and appropriate feedback control. Since the A/F sensor
lifetime was projected to be about 30,000 automobile miles and the U.S. car
production was several tens of million each year, a great sensor market
was realized.
The A/F sensor currently in use is based upon a zirconia oxygen sen-
sor. This type of sensor has been used in the past for sensing the partial
pressure of oxygen in a gas. These sensors are basically galvanic cells and
consist of a closed tube of calcia or yttria stabilized zirconia (CSZ or YSZ).

The tube is covered on both sides with electrodes (normally platinum). Since
CSZ and YSZ are ionic conductors of oxygen, when the two sides of the tube
are exposed to different oxygen pressures a voltage appears between the
electrodes. If one side of the tube is exposed to air for which the oxygen par-
tial pressure is known, the partial pressure of the other side can be obtained
by measuring the voltage across the cell. The output of the galvanic cell is
fed to a signal conditioning block, which then controls the fuel metering
system so as to maintain a stoichiometric A/F mixture. A block diagram of
the complete system currently being used to meet EPA regulations is shown
in Figure 1.2.
The description of the evolution of the A/F sensor clearly illustrates the
many disciplines that determine the need for sensors and influence their
design and manufacturing. In the case of the A/F sensor, the initial moti-
vation was environmental, namely, a concern for air quality. This concern
resulted in the Clean Air Act, which was political. Then science and engi-
neering entered the picture in the approaches used to transform polluting
constituents into inert byproducts. Both approaches had to be studied care-
fully to minimize economic-related factors such as cost and fuel economy.
Material problems relating to waste disposal eliminated one approach.
Principles of electrical engineering, physics, mechanical engineering, and
chemistry were then used to realize the zirconia oxygen sensor and the sig-
nal conditioner.
Similar scenarios can be given for the development of other sensors. For
example, in automated control of industrial operations ranging from fabri-
cation of integrated circuits to the assembly of automobiles, a wide variety
of chemical and physical sensors are used. In medicine, sensors are used
in the detection and control of a wide range of potentially life-threatening
diseases. Sensors also find use in studies dealing with plants, animals, and
the environment.
Engine Exhaust Catalytic

Exhaust
Combustion Gases Converter
Gas
Air to Fuel Mixture Air to Fuel Mixture Sampling
Adjustment Sensor
Figure 1.2
Complete feedback control system currently in use to meet EPA regulations.
Introduction 9
1.4 Classification of Sensors

Due to the multitude of sensors that may exist, at first glance it may appear
to be a formidable task to classify sensors in some logical fashion. One pos-
sible way to classify sensors may be according to their evolution. Inevitably,
the design, fabrication, and utilization of a sensor are driven by a need. For
example, in the case of the A/F sensor for the automobile, the need was dic-
tated by EPA via the Clean Air Act. Sensors in various manufacturing pro-
cesses may be driven by the need to increase production or decrease cost.
A particular biosensor may be driven by the need to rapidly detect a life-
threatening disease. A possible evolutionary process associated with the
development of a sensor is shown in Figure 1.3.
Although it is impossible to list all the potential needs that may result in
the development of a particular sensor, the needs may be grouped into the
various areas shown in Table 1.3.
The measurand either is identified concurrently with the need or results
as a consequence of the need. For example, in the study of ozone depletion,
which falls into the area of environment, the measurand is obviously ozone.
On the other hand, in the need dictated by the Clean Air Act, namely, to
Definition of
the Need
Measurand(s)
of Interest
Sensor(s)
Figure 1.3
An evolutionary process associated with sensor development.
Table 1.3
Possible Need Areas for Sensors
Agriculture Manufacturing
Automotive Marine
Construction Medical care
Consumer products Military
Energy Oceanography
Environment Security systems
Fishery Space
Food technology Transportation
Forestry Waste management
Health Other
reduce automobile exhaust gases such as CO, CHx, and NOx by 90%, the
measurand is not obvious. However, in attempting to satisfy this need, the
identification of a sensor to maintain a stoichiometric A/F mixture in engine
combustion resulted. Various groups of measurands possible and examples
of particular measurands for which a sensor is required are presented in
Table 1.4.
Once the measurand has been identified, the next step in the evolutionary
scale is to identify the sensor appropriate to the measurand. The realization
of the sensor can be thought of as the two-step process shown in Figure 1.4.
The measurand must undergo a biological, chemical, or physical interaction
in order that the measurand may be converted to an entity suitable for creat-
ing a sensor output. Possible types of measurand interactions are presented
in Table 1.5.
Once the measurand interaction has taken place, a means of detecting this
interaction must be identified. Often the nature of the interaction will define
the detection means. In other cases, the means of detection will be entirely
different than the nature of the interaction. Examples of various means of
detection are given in Table 1.6.
Concurrent with the identification of the measurand interaction and means
of detection is the identification of the material(s) used in the sensor. The can-
didate materials for a sensor cover a very wide range and are presented in
Table 1.7.
1.5 Example of a Gas Sensor: The Taguchi Sensor

In order to understand and appreciate the steps one must undertake in the
realization of a sensor, it is useful to consider an example. The Taguchi sen-
sor [3] is probably one of the most famous gas sensors currently available.
Introduction 11
Table 1.4
Examples of Measurands for Which Sensors Are Required
Acoustic Mechanical
• Intensity • Position (linear, angular)
• Spectrum • Velocity
• Velocity • Acceleration
Biological • Force
• Glucose • Stress, pressure
• Cholesterol • Strain
• Oxygen in blood • Mass, density
• Urea • Moment, torque
• Immunosensor • Speed of flow, rate of mass
• Biomass transport
• Other • Shape, roughness, orientation
Chemical • Stiffness, compliance
• Gas type and concentration • Viscosity
• Ion type and concentration • Crystallinity, structural integrity
• Components dissolved or • Other
suspended in solution Optical
• Other • Intensity, spectrum
Electric • Velocity
• Charge, current • Other
• Potential, potential difference Radiation
• Electric field (amplitude, • Type
phase polarization, spectrum) • Energy
• Conductivity • Intensity
• Permittivity • Other
• Other Thermal
Magnetic • Temperature
• Magnetic field (amplitude, • Flux
phase polarization, spectrum) • Specific heat
• Magnetic flux • Thermal conductivity
• Permeability • Other
• Other Other
• (Specify)
This sensor is shown in Figure 1.5. The measurand, which is a gas, inter-
acts with a doped semiconducting metal oxide film such as SnO2, changing
the resistance or conductivity of the film. The resistance of the film, R s, then
becomes an indicator of the gas concentration. The equivalent circuit for the
sensor is shown in Figure 1.6. By measuring the direct current (DC) in the
circuit, which is determined by R s for a fixed R and V, one is able to deduce
the gas concentration.
Identification of
the measurand
interaction
Identification of
the means of
detection
Figure 1.4
Two-step process in the realization of a sensor.
Table 1.5
Possible Types of Measurand Interactions
Biological Physical
• Biochemical transformation • Thermoelectric
• Physical transformation • Photoelectric
• Effect on test organism • Photomagnetic
• Spectroscopy • Magnetoelectric
• Other (specify) • Elastomagnetic
Chemical • Thermoelastic
• Chemical transformation • Elastoelectric
• Physical transformation • Thermomagnetic
• Electrochemical process • Thermooptic
• Spectroscopy • Photoelastic
• Other (specify) • Other (specify)
Table 1.6
Means of Detection Used in Sensors
Biological
Chemical
Electric, magnetic, or electromagnetic wave
Heat, temperature
Mechanical displacement or wave
Radioactivity, radiation
Other (specify)
Introduction 13
Table 1.7
Sensor Materials
Inorganic
Organic
Conductor
Insulator
Semiconductor
Liquid, gas, or plasma
Biological substance
Other (specify)
Variable
Cu or Pb wire resistor
Ceramic +
Al or Au Doped SnO2 layer V
–
Ammeter
Heater
Figure 1.5
Taguchi sensor.
+
Rs V
–
Ammeter
Figure 1.6
Equivalent circuit for the Taguchi sensor.
The need for this sensor is driven by the desire to determine the concen-
tration of a particular target gas (measurand). Depending upon the dopant
in the SnO2 film and the temperature of the heater, this type of sensor can
detect a wide variety of target gases. The appropriate area of application for
this sensor is the environment. The measurand reacts chemically with the
doped SnO2 film; therefore, the measurand interaction is chemical. Since the
current is monitored to detect the measurand, the means of detection is elec-
trical. The sensor materials used in this sensor include the metal electrodes
(Al or Au), the wire (Cu or Pb), the selective film (doped SnO2), the substrate
on which the film is deposited (ceramic alumina), and the heater (tungsten
or nichrome).
1.6 The Sensor as a Passive or Active Element

The sensor itself may be a passive or an active device. In a passive sensor,
the actual sensor doesn’t have an external signal applied to it. For example,
in the galvanic cell used as an A/F sensor, two sides of the zirconia tube are
exposed to different oxygen pressures, which creates a voltage. When the
oxygen pressure is known on one side, one can deduce from the voltage the
oxygen pressure on the other side. Another example of a passive sensor is
the thermocouple. In this device, the thermoelectric effect plays the major
role. In particular, current flow is initiated by virtue of a temperature differ-
ence across the device. In an active sensor the sensor has an external signal
applied to it. For example, in the case of the Taguchi sensor the external signal
is an electric current that is supplied by a voltage source (see Figure 1.5). The
measurand then causes changes in the external signal that are monitored.
Other active sensors include acoustic wave (AW) sensors and fiber optic (FO)
sensors. In an AW sensor, an acoustic wave is the external signal, while in an
FO sensor, it is an allowed electromagnetic mode of propagation.
Inherent to both the passive and the active sensor is a sensing element.
This is the entity that the measurand of interest interacts directly with. In the
case of the Taguchi sensor the sensing element is the SnO2 film, while in the
A/F sensor the sensing element is either CSZ or YSZ.
A passive or an active sensor may also have several transducers. A trans-
ducer is a structure that converts a signal from one form to another. In a
passive sensor, transducers are used to measure a signal that is induced in
a sensor by the measurand. The metal electrodes at the end of the zirconia
tube in the A/F sensor are examples of passive transducers. In this case,
ionic conductivity is transformed to voltage. In an active sensor, transduc-
ers are used to excite a signal in the sensor. For example, in the case of the
Taguchi sensor, the metal electrodes cause an electric current to flow through
Introduction 15
the doped SnO2 film. In AW and FO sensors, transducers are used to excite
acoustic modes and electromagnetic modes, respectively.
1.7 The Sensor as Part of a Measurement System

The sensor is by its nature either an active or passive device that serves as
the heart of a measurement system. The roles that a sensor may play in a
measurement system are best illustrated by the block diagrams shown in
Figures 1.7 and 1.8.
When the sensor is used in a stand-alone measuring device as shown
in Figure 1.7, the desired output is usually in the form of a digital readout.
For example, in the case of the Taguchi sensor, the sensor is as shown in
Figure 1.5 and the signal conditioner is used to translate a measured current
to a digital readout.
If the sensor is used in optimizing the performance of a particular system
as shown in Figure 1.8, it is one element of a larger system. In this case the
sensor output is fed to an appropriate signal conditioner, which modifies
the signal in a form suitable to interface to the feedback control system.
This feedback control system then appropriately modifies one or more sub-
systems in the system under study so that an “optimized” measurand may
Signal
Measurand Sensor Digital Readout
Conditioner
Figure 1.7
The sensor used as a stand-alone measuring device.
Signal
System Measurand Sensor
Conditioner
Feedback
Control
System
Figure 1.8
The sensor used as a measuring device to optimize the performance of a particular system.
be produced. An example of the sensor being used to optimize the per-

formance of a system is the case of the A/F sensor in the automobile (see
Figure 1.2).
1.8 Sensor Properties

There are several properties associated with a sensor that are critical to the
sensor performance. Some of the more important properties are listed in
Table 1.8.
Several of the sensor properties can best be described by referring to a
sequence of typical sensor responses as shown in Figure 1.9. The sensor
response or signature that is associated with one of the means of detec-
tion shown in Table 1.6 is plotted as a function of time. For example, in the
case of the Taguchi sensor the means of detection is electric and the output
variable, which is measured as the sensor response, is the resistivity (resis-
tance) or conductivity. In the case of the A/F sensor discussed earlier the
Table 1.8
Important Sensor Properties Critical to the Sensor Performance
Response time Resolution
Recovery time Dynamic range
Reproducibility Selectivity
Aging Size and weight
Stability (short term, long term) Cost
Sensitivity
(Arbitrary Units)
Sensor Response
Response Recovery
time time
Time
Exposure to Removal of
measurand measurand
Figure 1.9
A sequence of typical sensor signatures.
Introduction 17
means of detection is again electrical with the sensor response being the
voltage. In the AW sensor the means of detection is mechanical and the sen-
sor response that is measured may be the amplitude, frequency, or velocity
of the acoustic wave.
The response and recovery times are shown in Figure 1.9. The response
time is the time it takes the sensor to reach 90% of its steady-state value
after the introduction of the measurand. The recovery time is the time that
it takes the sensor to be within 10% of the value it had before exposure to the
measurand. Typically the response times are much shorter than the recovery
times. For example, in a gas sensor a typical response time is of the order of
a minute or less, whereas the recovery time can be 30 minutes or longer. The
response time is basically the real time it takes for a measurand to interact
with the sensing element. For example, in the Taguchi sensor it is the time
it takes for the chemical reaction between the target gas (measurand) and
the film (sensing element) to occur. The recovery time is longer and more
involved than the response time. Once the measurand has been removed
from the sensor other steps may have to be taken in order to return the sen-
sor to its equilibrium value. For example, in the Taguchi sensor the film
needs to be heated in order to induce a reversible chemical reaction to return
the film to its original state.
Reproducibility relates to the ability of the sensor to produce the same
signature upon repeated exposure to a particular measurand. A sensor that
exhibits excellent reproducibility would have the same response and recov-
ery time along with the same response level. After repeated use of a sensor
over a long period of time it is only natural to expect some degradation in
the sensor signature. This might be due to the accumulation of trace impu-
rities or imperfections in the sensing element or the nature of the envi-
ronment that the sensor must operate in. This degradation, the time for
which varies from one type of sensor to another, is commonly referred to
as aging.
The stability of a sensor can be deduced by examining the general shape
of the sensor signature. In the short term, one would like to minimize or
eliminate any drift, ripple, or sudden variations in a single sensor response.
In other words, the sensor should respond in a well-behaved fashion, as
shown in Figure 1.9. Once the sensor has reached its saturation value, it
should maintain that value until the measurand has been removed. In the
long-term sensor signature parameters such as the response time, saturation
level and recovery time should be reproducible from exposure to exposure
of exactly the same concentration of the measurand. Any significant system-
atic or sudden changes in signature parameters would indicate that the sen-
sor is becoming unstable in the long term.
Sensitivity and resolution are sensor properties that are extremely critical
when one is working with precise control systems or the sensing of poten-
tially dangerous measurands. Mathematically, the sensitivity, S, of a sensor is
Xr
Sensor response
Xr = AC2 + XA
XA
Measurand concentration (C)

(arbitrary units)
Figure 1.10
An example of a nonlinear sensor dose-response as a function of measurand concentration.
defined as the slope of the dose-response curve, which is the sensor response
vs. the measurand concentration curve. Ideally, one would like to have the
sensitivity be a constant over the dynamic range of the sensor. This would
imply a linear dose-response curve.
The lower limit of sensitivity is determined by the minimum amount of
measurand capable of producing a measurable response.
Resolution is how accurately one can measure the measurand concen-
tration and relates directly to the error associated with the experimental
measurement. It is important to realize that the minimum measurable
amount of measurand, or lower limit of sensitivity, may in fact not be
equivalent to the sensitivity. This is due to the fact that the measurand
response may not vary linearly with measurand concentration. As an
example, consider the nonlinear variation of the sensor response (Xr) with
the measurand concentration (C) shown in Figure 1.10. It is obvious in this
case that the sensitivity increases with the measurand concentration.
Obviously in designing a sensor, one should try to obtain a response that
is linear with concentration, or at least operate the sensor in the linear region
of the dose-response curve.
The sensor’s dynamic range is defined as the range of measurand values
for which a sensor response occurs. Ideally, this dynamic range should be
associated with the measurand concentration range for which the varia-
tion of the sensor response, Xr with concentration C is linear. In this case,
the signal conditioner design and implementation is straightforward. The
dynamic range, however, could extend to regions where the Xr vs. C varia-
tion is nonlinear, in which case the corresponding signal conditioner would
be more complex. The dynamic range can best be illustrated by referring to
the example of an Xr vs. C variation, given in Figure 1.11.
For the example shown in Figure 1.11, specific sensor response regions
may be defined as follows:
Introduction 19
Xr
XA
C
C1 C2 C3 C4
Figure 1.11
An example of a complete sensor response versus concentration.
0 ≤ C ≤ C1: below the sensor response threshold level

C1 ≤ C ≤ C4: complete sensor dynamic range
C2 ≤ C ≤ C3: ideal sensor dynamic range (linear region of Xr vs. C
curve)
C1 ≤ C ≤ C2 and C3 ≤ C ≤ C4: nonlinear region of the sensor dynamic
range
C ≥ C4: saturation region of sensor
The sensitivity parameter, S, may be used when evaluating a single sensor

or comparing the performance of several sensors. In the single sensor case
often the sensor response will vary depending upon sensor operating con-
ditions. For example, in the case of the Taguchi sensor, the sensor response
is strongly temperature dependent. Therefore, it is necessary to operate the
sensor at a single temperature that is maintained by adding a heater to the
sensor. This single temperature is normally the temperature for which S is
maximum.
Another very important sensor property is selectivity. Ideally, the sen-
sor should respond only to the measurand of interest and not respond to
any other measurand. If a sensor responds to measurands other than the
target, then various signal processing techniques need to be employed in
the signal conditioner in order to eliminate nontarget measurand signals.
In the design of the signal conditioner the sensor signature is an important
input parameter. A sensor may respond to a wide variety of measurands,
but the signature for each measurand may be uniquely different. The signal
conditioner could range from a very simple signal processing scheme, such
as threshold detection, to a more complex scheme, such as one employing
neural networks.
Three other properties also need to be considered in the realization of
a sensor: namely, size, weight, and cost. The location of a sensor, either
isolated or within another system, determines the limits on the size and
weight of the sensor. For example, sensors associated with spacecraft and
guided missiles have very small size and weight limitations. Finally, the
question of economics or cost needs to be addressed. This is often depen-
dent on the scope and need for the sensor. For example, in the case of A/F
sensors in the automobile, the number of sensors required is extremely
large; therefore producing the cheapest sensor becomes a driving force.
In the case of an application relating to monitoring the concentration of
hydrogen in the rockets of a spacecraft, the need is essential and cost is of
secondary concern.
It is important to realize that the particular sensor application determines
which sensor property is the most important. In the detection of very highly
toxic gas, sensitivity becomes one of the most important sensor properties. In
applications where the sensor must respond numerous times to a measurand
such as in “on-line” control systems, properties such as reproducibility and aging
become paramount. In applications relating to the implantation of biosensors in
humans or animals, weight and size become very important properties.
1.9 Historical Development of Sensors

One of the earliest sensors known to mankind is the compass, which was
commonplace even before Roman times. The compass basically consists of a
magnetic material, such as iron, which, when constructed as a thin needle and
allowed to rotate, will constantly point in a northerly direction. Early travel-
ers and explorers on land and sea relied on the compass for navigation.
In more recent times, the need for sensors relative to safety became rec-
ognized. For example, in early mining operations it was necessary to be
aware of potentially dangerous gases such as methane and hydrogen sulfide
(H2S). Miners resorted to the use of creatures such as canaries and cats to
detect these gases. An indication of the presence of potentially dangerous
gases occurred when the canary or the cat died. This is particularly inter-
esting in the case of H2S, a dangerous gas that is denser than air. Miners,
when approaching a section of a mine that might have H2S gas present, often
examined this area with one or more cats. Since the higher concentrations of
H2S were located near the mine floor, the cats were the first to react to this
gas. If the cat behaved strangely or died, the miner knew that he had only a
short time to vacate the area.
In the early 1900s rapid advancement in technology prompted the develop-
ment of various types of sensors. This is illustrated in Table 1.9, where the
history of the development of some important chemical sensors is outlined.
The disciplines involved in the development of a particular sensor can
cover a wide range. For example, in the area of biosensors one can have
microbiologists, medical doctors, chemists, physicists, or engineers working
Introduction 21
Table 1.9
History of the Development of Some Important Chemical Sensors
1923 Catalytic combustion type sensor
1930 Practical use of glass electrode for pH measurement
1938 Humidity sensor using LiC1 film
1952 Galvanic cell type gas sensor
1961 Solid electrolyte type sensor
1961 Ion electrode sensor
1962 Biosensors—basic concept
1962 Oxide semiconductor type gas sensor (Taguchi sensor)
1964 Piezoelectric quartz crystal sensor
1966 Glucose sensor
1970 Ion-sensitive field effect transistor (ISFET) sensor
1970 Optical fiber gas sensor
1975 Pd gate field effect transistor (FET) hydrogen sensor
1976 Practical use of oxygen sensors for automobiles
1977 Enzyme FET
1977 Surface acoustic wave sensor concept
1981 Surface acoustic wave gas sensor
1989 Acoustic plate mode sensor
2004 Lateral field excited acoustic wave sensor
on a single sensor. Often there is little or no collaboration between differ-

ent investigators, and hence sensor development has not proceeded in a
cohesive fashion but rather a haphazard fashion. This is best illustrated by
following the development of the Taguchi gas sensor. The idea that a sorbed
gas can affect the electrical properties of a material was first pointed out
by Bardeen [4] in the late 1940s. However, it was not until 1962 [5] that a
deliberate effort was made to use this phenomenon in gas sensing. The first
gas sensor, which did not appear until 1968, was the result of a tremendous
amount of work by Naoyoshi Taguchi. When Taguchi started his work he
had no knowledge of gas absorption or even metal oxide semiconductors.
His motivation for the development of the gas sensor was triggered by a
liquefied petroleum gas explosion in Japan that killed 10 people. Taguchi
worked 7 days a week and holidays for 2,000 days (over 6 years) develop-
ing the Taguchi gas sensor. He went from the beginning to the end of the
periodic table before he finally settled on SnO2 as the sensing element. He
made an average 20 samples a day resulting in roughly 40,000 samples.
After developing the commercial product [3], Taguchi had to fight other,
much larger companies in the marketplace. Finally, Taguchi succeeded and
formed Figaro Engineering, which is the leading producer of gas sensors in
the world today.
Obviously a better, more efficient and focused way to develop a gas sen-
sor would be to form a research team comprised of people with different
backgrounds working in a coordinated fashion. Unfortunately, this has not

been the case in the area of gas sensors. Investigators have either performed
excruciating searches for a particular sensing element or stumbled upon one
by accident. Also, when a sensing element was identified, in many cases, the
microscopic and macroscopic behavior of the sensing element was not under-
stood. For example, in the case of the detection of H2S gas (target measurand)
by tungsten trioxide (WO3) (sensing element) commercial sensors have been
available [6] since the mid-1970s. However, only recently has microscopic and
macroscopic work [7, 8] been done to understand the operation of these sen-
sors and optimize their performance.
Even though sensor technology has evolved in a rather random fashion, the
advances in materia1s and microfabrication technology have had a positive
effect on sensors. This is illustrated in Figure 1.12, where an old methane gas
sensor, the Davey lamp, is compared to two examples of modern gas sensors,
a Taguchi sensor and a sensor developed in Great Britain. Microprocessor
technology has also had a positive influence in the interfacing of the sensor
with the real world via the signal conditioner and also interfacing the sensor
to a control system.
An ideal procedure for the research and development of a prototype sen-
sor is summarized in Figure 1.13.
Once a need has been identified, a research team comprising of research-
ers in different disciplines should be formed. Working together and using
Figure 1.12
Old and new gas sensors. The Davey lamp (left) and a modern Taguchi and British gas sensor
(right) for the detection of methane.
Introduction 23
Researchers in
Different Disciplines
Sensor Design
Sensor Construction
Sensor
Testing
Materials Microelectronics
Technology Sensor Improvements Technology
and Modifications
Realization of a Miniature
Low Cost Sensor
Figure 1.13
Ideal process for sensor research and development.
recent developments in materials and microelectronics technology, these

researchers potentially should be able to develop a miniature low-cost sen-
sor to satisfy their need.
1.10 Sensor System

The exact definition of a sensor is often interpreted differently depending
upon the context in which it is used. Perhaps it is best viewed as the sensor
system shown schematically in Figure 1.14. The system consists of three dis-
tinct components: (1) sample preparation, (2) sensing element, and (3) sensor
electronics.
The sample preparation phase of a sensor system is a very critical com-
ponent of the system. Often dangerous target measurands such as bacteria,
viruses, or pathogens may occur in minute concentrations. For example,
in the case of a toxic gas, small volumes of the gas may not be sufficient
to result in detection by the sensing element. Rapid and efficient pumping
units in which a large volume of gas is collected and sampled are necessary.
The sample is then delivered usually with appropriate mass flow control-
lers and appropriate tubing to a prefiltering component. This component
Sensor System
Sample Sensing Sensor

Preparation Element(s) Electronics
Digital
Particulate Chemi and/or Optical, Readout
Filtration Bio Filtering Incubation Target Selective Electrochemical,
Biological or or Piezoelectric
Chemical Film Sensing Platforms
(Response
(Selectivity) Time and
Sensitivity)
Figure 1.14
Sensor system.
provides the first level of selectivity to the sensor system. In particular, the
primary function of this component is to filter those gaseous components
that may result in false alarms. The filtering may be done using micron
to nanoscale structures or molecular sieves such as zeolites to eliminate
potential interferents. Once the prefiltering is accomplished, the filtered
gaseous sample is then delivered to the sensing element(s). In the case of
bacteria, a very low concentration is often present and the bacteria need to
be incubated so that a sufficient concentration of bacteria is presented to
the sensing element(s).
The sensing elements, which may be a single element or an array of ele-
ments, typically consist of a measurand selective film and a sensing plat-
form. The purpose of the selective film is to sorb the target measurand.
Once this takes place, mechanical and electrical property changes occur
in the film. This may include changes in mass, elasticity, viscosity, con-
ductivity, or dielectric constant. The sensing platform is the entity upon
which the measurand selective film is deposited. Typically it consists of a
substance on which the film may be attached and an appropriate metallic
electrode configuration deposited. Popular sensing elements examined to
date include the acoustic wave and metal oxide semiconductor platforms.
In the case of the former, an acoustic wave is excited in a piezoelectric
material and the frequency of the acoustic wave changes as the electric
and mechanical properties of the measurand selective film change. In
the case of the latter, the platform is an insulator, which may be single
crystal or amorphous. Once the sensing elements have responded to the
target measurand(s) and the output has been transduced into an electri-
cal signal (frequency, resistance, or impedance), the signals must then be
processed. This component can be eliminated if there is only one sensing
element and the sensing film is selective to only the target measurand.
However, in reality this seldom occurs and one must employ multiple
Introduction 25
sensing elements and intelligently monitor the sensing element output.

This is usually done using pattern recognition and neural network tech-
niques. Finally, a digital readout indicates the presence (absence) and con-
centration level of the target measurand. This component would contain
the necessary signal processing and conditioning to convert the analog
signal to a digital output that can be easily read by the end user.
Clearly the exact structure of the sensor system is dependent on the types
of sensing elements used. Although certain components, such as the sample
collection, delivery, and prefiltering, are independent of the sensing element,
processing of the sensor element output, and signal conditioning are sensing
element dependent.
References
1. Westbrook, M. H., and Turner, J. D. 1994. Automotive sensors, 7. London: Institute
of Physics Publishing.
2. Westbrook, M. H., and Turner, J. D. 1994. Automotive sensors, 9. London: Institute
of Physics Publishing.
3. Taguchi, N. 1971. U.S. Patent 3,625,756, December 7.
4. Bardeen, J. 1947. Phys. Rev. 71:717.
5. Seiyama, T., Kato, A., Fujiishi, K., and Negatani, M. 1962. Anal. Chem. 34:1502.
6. Detector Electronics, Minneapolis, MN. Private communication.
7. Xu, Z., Vetelino, J. F., Lec, R., and Parker, D. C. 1990. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A8:3634.
8. Smith, D. J., Vetelino, J. F., Falconer, R. S., and Wittman, E. L. 1993. Sensors
Actuators B 13–14:264.
Questions
1. Plot a graph to show efficiency vs. A/F mixture ratio in a catalytic
convertor and explain why air to fuel mixture is very difficult to
design.
2. Referring to published literature, plot a sensor response vs. time
for an E. coli (biological) sensor defining each segment of the
response.
3. Explain the function and operation of an oxygen sensor in an
automobile.
4. NOx, detection where x is either 1 or 2, can be used in at least two
distinctly different applications. What are those applications and the
concentration levels of interest?
5. The response of a sensor Xr vs. concentration, C, is parabolic for

C ≤ C1, linear for C1 ≤ C ≤ C2 and constant for C ≥ C2, as shown
below. Assume a measurement of accuracy of x%.
a. Obtain the minimum concentration observable.

b. Obtain an expression for the resolution in the following ranges:
C ≤ C1 and C1 ≤ C ≤ C2.
c. What is the operating range?
d. What is the saturation region?
e. What is the ideal dynamic range?
2
Electrochemical Sensors
2.1 Background
Electrochemical sensors form a group of very important sensors whose
response is a result of an interaction between electricity and chemistry—
hence the nomenclature electrochemical sensors. Basically, the electrochemi-
cal sensors can be divided into three general types: conductimetric,
potentiometric, and amperometric. The conductimetric sensors are those
whose response relates to the measurement of electrical resistance, imped-
ance, or admittance. The potentiometric sensor response relates to the
measurement of voltage, while the amperometric sensor response relates
to the measurement of electrical current. These sensors basically respond
to a chemical environment. This chemical environment may include a mea-
surand, which may be in a liquid, gas, or solid phase. Typical measurands
may include chemical species such as gases (O2, CO, CO2, H2S, NO, NO2,
etc.), protons (pH), humidity, or biological quantities such as glucose, cho-
lesterol, enzymes, antibodies, proteins, etc. It is interesting to note that
since there are a large number of biological applications for these sensors
in humans, animals, and plants, these sensors are often referred to as bio-
electrochemical sensors by researchers working in the fields of biology and
medicine.
Work in the area of electrochemical sensors has been ongoing for almost 100
years. One of the earliest works relates to the use of oxygen-ion-conducting
solid electrolytes as fuel and concentration cells. However, the advent of
microfabrication technology along with rapid improvements in materials
technology in the last 40 years has resulted in the movement of sensors from
the macro to the micro domain. Amperometric sensors such as the air/fuel
(A/F) sensor in the automobile, conductimetric sensors such as the Taguchi
sensor, and potentiometric sensors such as the chemical field effect tran-
sistor (CHEMFET) are examples of microsensors. Through the cooperative
efforts of engineers and scientists, further breakthroughs in reducing not
only the size but also the cost of electrochemical sensors may be expected in
the future.
27
2.2 Conductimetric Sensors

Conductimetric sensors basically consist of an electrically insulating element,
such as a sensing platform, upon which one deposits a sensing semiconduct-
ing film or metal and metal electrodes. This type of sensor is an active sensor
and requires an excitation source such as a direct current (DC) or alternating
current (AC) voltage to cause current to flow in the sensing element. The
measurand interacts with the sensing film and causes changes in the sensing
element resistance (DC case) or impedance (AC case). Several configurations
have been used to model the conductiometric sensor. Basically these con-
figurations are of the type shown in Figure 2.1.
In the more general case of an AC excitation the sensor can be electrically
modeled as an impedance, z(ω), whose value can be determined by the fol-
lowing relation:
v(ω )
z(ω ) = (2.1)
I (ω )
where v(ω) = voltage between the electrodes, and I(ω) = current through
the sensor.
When the sensor is exposed to a measurand (normally a gas), the sensing
element’s impedance changes, and this change is directly related to the con-
centration of the measurand. A general equivalent circuit for the conducti-
metric sensor is shown in Figure 2.2.
One can clearly see that the equivalent circuit for the conductimetric sen-
sors is a rather complex arrangement of capacitors and resistors. The signifi-
cant interaction, of course, should occur between the sensing element and
the measurand, and hence the circuit elements, Cs and Rs, should be the focus
of attention. However, one must be aware of the effect of the other elements.
If the effects are significant, means to account for them must be explored. In
Top view
Side view
Substrate Substrate Substrate
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 2.1
Different configurations used to model the conductimetric sensor: cross-hatched region, elec-
trodes; dotted region, sensing element.
Electrochemical Sensors 29
Cs
Rs
Cb
Rei Rb Reo
Ci
Cei Ceo
Ri
Figure 2.2
Equivalent circuit of the conductimetric sensor: Rei, Cei, Reo, and Ceo, circuit elements of the
input and output electrodes; Cs and Rs, circuit elements for the sensing element; Ci and Ri,
circuit elements for the sensing element/substrate interface; Cb and Rb, circuit elements for
the substrate.
Electron Electron
motion motion
φ
d
Metal Insulating Conducting

oxide sensing film
Figure 2.3
The potential diagram associated with a metal-insulating oxide-conducting sensing film
junction.
this case, hermetically sealing the electrode or substrate from the measurand
should reduce the effect of some of the circuit elements.
The electrodes used in conductimetric sensors are metals. Hence, the type
of contacts that one must consider depends upon the nature of the sensing
film. For conducting sensing films the two possible types of contacts are met-
al-conductor and metal-insulating oxide-conductor. In the case of the former,
the contact is ohmic, and hence the contact resistance is zero. In the second
case, an oxide layer impedes the flow of current and presents a potential
barrier, as shown in Figure 2.3. This may result in a tunneling current at the
junction.
The tunneling current is given by the Fowler Nordheim equation [1],
which is a nonlinear current vs. voltage relationship in which the corre-
sponding contact resistance depends upon the barrier height and width
in a complicated fashion. If aluminum is used as the contact metal, a

nonlinear contact resistance results. This is due to the fact that alumi-
num is prone to oxidize. If, however, one uses noble metals such as gold,
platinum, or palladium, the contact can be prepared oxide-free. However,
in this case, one must realize that noble metals are far more costly than
aluminum.
In the case of semiconducting sensing films, again two types of contacts
arise: a metal-semiconductor and metal-insulating oxide-semiconductor.
The metal-semiconductor junction is the familiar Schottky barrier, where the
current may be a nonlinear function of the voltage. The contact resistance
associated with this junction is given by the following relation [1]:
k
R= eqϕ kT
(2.2)
qA r T
where k = Boltzman’s constant, φ = Potential barrier height, q = electron

charge, and T = temperature.
Ar is the Richardson constant for thermionic emission of electrons given by
4 πmqk 2
Ar = (2.3)
h2
where h = Planck’s constant, and m = electron mass.

In the case where the contact metal is not a noble metal, an oxide layer
appears between the metal and semiconductor. The current-voltage relation-
ship is then given by the following equation [1]:
   qv 
1
2 
 −q φ − 
   4 πεd  
J = ART exp 
2
 (2.4)
 kT 
 
 
where v = applied voltage, d = oxide thickness, and ε = oxide dielectric

constant.
In some cases the current transport is not due to electrons or holes, but
rather ions. In this case an electrochemical reaction will take place at the
contact and the mass transport of the electroactive ions must be considered.
The contact resistance then becomes a strong nonlinear function of the mea-
surand concentration.
The previous discussion has been restricted to the DC case. However, in

the AC case one must consider the capacitors in the equivalent circuit. Since
capacitance is related to charge distribution and dielectric constant, any
accumulation of charge at the contact will give rise to capacitive effects that
must be considered.
In the DC case, the value of the resistance of the sensing element depends
upon whether the layer is a semiconductor or a conductor. If the layer is a
semiconductor, the contact resistance is lower than the selective layer resis-
tance and can be either used to modulate the overall sensor resistance or
neglected. The resistance of the layer can be expressed in terms of the layer
conductivity, σ, or resistivity, ℜ, as follows:
 ℜ
R= = (2.5)
σA A
where ℓ = length of the layer between the electrodes, and A = layer cross-
sectional area.
The layer conductivity depends upon the concentration (n and p) and
mobility (μn and μp) of the electrons and holes, respectively, in the semicon-
ductor layer, as follows:
μ = q(nμn + pμp) (2.6)
As the target gas interacts with the layer it will modify the carrier concen-
trations and mobilities accordingly. The conductivity will either increase or
decrease depending on the nature of the reaction between the measurand
and layer. In the case where the sensing layer is a conductor, the contact
resistance is larger than the layer resistance before exposure to the mea-
surand. However, after exposure to the measurand, the layer resistance
increases quickly and soon exceeds the contact resistance. Obviously for
this case, the contact resistance cannot be neglected and needs to be prop-
erly accounted for.
At first glance, it may appear that the conductimetric sensors are reason-
ably simple and their support electronics is not complicated. However, most
conductimetric sensors are treated only macroscopically. Therefore, the rela-
tionship between the output signal and measurand concentration is given
without a complete understanding of the microscopic behavior. The micro-
scopic understanding is determined to a large extent by the understanding
of the measurand-layer interaction. In the case of the metal oxide semicon-
ductor layer, the understanding of the microscopic interactions is fair at best,
while for biological layers very little is known about the measurand-layer
interaction.
Depending upon the type of sensing film and whether the impedance
measurement is a DC or AC type, conductimetric sensors can be divided
into four groups.
The first group is called the semiconductor metal oxide sensors. The
sensing film is a metal oxide semiconductor and the measurement
is DC. The most famous of the semiconductor metal oxide sensors is
the Taguchi sensor.
The second group of conductimetric sensors is called the chemire-
sistors. The sensing film in this case may be inorganic conductor or
organic semiconductor, and the measurement is DC.
The third group is called a conductor sensor. The sensing film in this
case is an electrical conductor.
The fourth and final conductimetric type sensor is called a dielec-
trometer or capacitor sensor. It differs from the other conduc-
timetric sensors in that it uses an AC signal and, in many cases,
the sensing film is an electrical insulator. In this case, the change
in sensing layer capacitance is monitored upon exposure to the
measurand.
2.3 Semiconducting Metal Oxide Sensors

2.3.1 background
Since the early work of Bardeen [2] in the late 1940s, it has been well known
that the adsorption of a foreign species such as gas on a semiconductor
can create surface states. These states can modify [3–10] the carrier con-
centrations in a semiconductor, causing a change in the semiconductor’s
resistivity or conductivity. This so-called active surface created problems
with early work on semiconductors and several investigations were made
to pacify the surface.
The first deliberate effort to use the active surface on the semiconductor
as a gas sensor appeared in 1962. Seiyama et al. [11] monitored the change
in the conductivity of ZnO films when they were exposed to gases such as
CO2, benzene, ethyl alcohol, and oxygen. For the first three gases the conduc-
tivity increased, since these gases behaved as electron donors, while in the
case of oxygen the conductivity decreased, which leads one to conclude that
oxygen behaves as an electron acceptor. In a follow-up paper, Seiyama and
Kagawa [12] further examined the characteristics of this detector. They also
performed measurements on a host of other semiconducting films, such as
Cr2O3, TiO2, CuO, and SnO2.
Although there has been some work [13] on organic semiconductors and
elemental or semimetal semiconductors, the most popular semiconductors
are the metal oxide variety. Among the metal oxide semiconductors, the
one that has received the most attention has been SnO2. This resulted in the
development of the so-called Taguchi gas sensor (TGS) [14].
Since the sensing element of the TGS is a SnO2 film, a large amount of work
has been done on SnO2. The physical and electrical properties of SnO2 films
have been examined in detail by Jarzebski and Martin [15]. Other studies
have been concerned with the effect various gases have on the SnO2 film.
In particular, the gases most frequently studied [16–36] included CO, H2O
vapor, propane, H2, NOx, O2, H2S, ethanol, C3H8, CO2, methane, SO2, and
benzene. Several of these studies were directed toward obtaining a physi-
cally realistic and practically useful gas sensor. Properties studied included
film durability, sensor size, weight and portability, sensitivity, recovery time,
response time, stability, selectivity, and reproducibility. In particular, the
sensor recovery times for pure undoped SnO2 films were observed [30] to be
in excess of 10 minutes, while the addition of a gold dopant caused the recov-
ery time to decrease to less than 3 minutes. Similarly, sensitization of the
surface by adding dopants such as Nb, V, Ti, Mo, Au, Pt, ThO2, Pb, or Sb2O3
[17,18,24,27,28,30] decreased the sensor response time significantly. Also, the
selectivity of the sensor could be improved by heating the film in environ-
ments such as SO2 [32]. By varying the operating temperature of the sensor,
it was shown [32] that the sensor response to certain gases was maximum at
a particular temperature. This information could be used in the design of a
selective sensor. Finally, it has been pointed out by Vetelino and coworkers
[37,38] that heat treating the film was found to stabilize the film, decrease the
response time, and increase the sensitivity.
Although there have been numerous papers reporting the characteristics
of SnO2 and other semiconductor metal oxide-based sensors, much less work
has been devoted to a complete understanding or modeling of what is actu-
ally taking place in the film. This is a little surprising when one realizes that
as early as the 1950s [3] it was observed that the resistance of semiconduc-
tors is sensitive to the sorption of gases. The fact that semiconductor sensors
exhibit hysteresis and are sensitive to large numbers of gases has contributed
in part to the lack of a complete understanding of the physical or chemi-
cal processes taking place in the film. The form of the gas interactions with
semiconductor surfaces has been grouped into four types [39]: (1) reduction/
oxidation (redox) of the semiconductor, (2) ion exchange, (3) adsorption, and
(4) surface states. The interactions present when SnO2 is the film of interest
cover all four types. For example, Pink et al. [26] suggested a redox type reac-
tion is involved in the sensitivity of their SnO2 film to hydrocarbons. The H2S
sensor based on SnO2 has been suggested [39] to be an ion exchange case. The
simple adsorption case seems to be the most popular for semiconducting
oxide sensors. If the adsorbing gas is a reducing agent, it injects electrons into
the semiconductor, and if it is an oxidizing agent, it extracts electrons from
the semiconductor. An example of the latter is the NOx-based SnO2 sensor
[19]. Finally, the creation of a surface state case has been suggested [16,23,26]
to be the primary mechanism in some of the Taguchi sensors.
The above work seems to suggest that the appropriate microscopic theo-
retical description is dependent upon what type of gas is interacting with
SnO2. Clearly, there is a need for a good understanding of all the physical
and chemical processes involved in SnO2-based sensors.
In addition to SnO2 there has been work on other semiconducting metal
oxide films for sensor applications. These films include ZnO [11,12,23,31,32,40],
TiO2 [13,35,39], WO3 [37,38], Co3O4 [13], CeO2 [32], Mn2O3 [32], Cr2O3 [12,32],
CuO [12], and Ag2O [39]. Clearly next to SnO2 the most work has been done
on ZnO. In fact, the early work on metal oxide semiconductor films for sensor
applications was done [11] on ZnO. Interest, however, turned away from ZnO
after the introduction of the TGS sensor. Recently, however, there has been
some interesting work [40,41] on ZnO in the polycrystalline, single crystal,
and compressed disc form. The most recent work [41] indicates that ZnO
single crystal sensors have good long-term stability and are easy to fabricate.
Recently there has also been some work done on WO3 [37,38] at the University
of Maine in order to try to optimize these films for gas sensing applications.
The work on the other films is limited; however, there is reason to believe that
much work is unpublished due to proprietary reasons. This is evidenced by
the commercial WO3-based H2S detector available from Detector Electronics
Industries in Minneapolis [42].
Although the macroscopic theory of operation of the semiconducting metal
oxide sensor is straightforward, the microscopic theory is involved and in
many cases not understood. In order to formulate a complete microscopic
description, one must be able to completely describe the role gas-film-ambi-
ent chemistry and film structure play in determining film electrical proper-
ties. Some important questions that need to be addressed include:
• Why are certain films selectively sorbent to certain gases?

• How can the sensitivity of a film be maximized?
• What steps are necessary in film preparation to ensure both short-
and long-term stability in the sensor response?
• How can the sensor response and recovery times be minimized?
• What role do ambient air parameters such as humidity and tempera-
ture play?
• How can the reproducibility of sensor properties from sensor to sen-
sor be maintained?
Before attempting to answer these questions, the metal oxide semiconductor

electrical properties will be discussed.
2.3.2 electrical Properties of the Metal Oxide Semiconductor

2.3.2.1 Intrinsic and Extrinsic Metal Oxide Semiconductor
The intrinsic metal oxide semiconductor is defined as a single crystal metal
oxide that has no imperfections, vacancies, interstitial atoms, or dislocations.
E
Conduction band
Ec
T = T1
Ef T = 0° K
T = T2
Ev
Valence band
F
0.5 1.0
Figure 2.4
The energy band structure for an intrinsic semiconductor with the Fermi-Dirac probability
function superimposed upon it. 0º K < T1 < T2.
The energy band diagram for an intrinsic semiconductor with the Fermi-
Dirac probability functions superimposed upon it is shown in Figure 2.4. In
an actual metal oxide semiconductor imperfections are present, causing it
to become extrinsic. The imperfections can be either donors or acceptors. In
the case of the former they donate electrons to the semiconductor, causing
it to become n-type, while in the latter case holes are created, causing it to
become p-type. The energy band structure for the n- and p-type metal oxide
semiconductors and the appropriate location of the Fermi level are shown
in Figures 2.5 and 2.6. In contrast to silicon, which has an energy gap of
about 1 eV, metal oxide semiconductors have an energy gap of about 3 eV.
The excess carriers have caused the Fermi level to be either slightly below
the conduction band (n-type) or slightly above the valence band (p-type). The
appropriate carrier concentrations can be obtained by invoking charge neu-
trality in the semiconductor and applying the mass-action law.
Metal oxide semiconductors typically have an excess amount of metal,
which creates oxygen vacancies. The extra electrons associated with the
metal, which are normally bound to oxygen, are loosely bound and readily
enter the conduction band. The oxygen vacancies are therefore said to act
as donors. Metal ions located in interstitial locations or acting as substi-
tutional impurities for the host metal ion can also donate electrons to the
conduction band. However, the predominant donor is the oxygen vacan-
cies. It is therefore obvious that metal oxide semiconductors are n-type.
To achieve p-type metal oxide one would have an excess of oxygen pres-
ent. The arguments as to why excess oxygen would produce holes would
parallel the discussion on why oxygen deficiencies produce electrons.
However, to date there has been no consistent method to make p-type
metal oxides.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
charge. On the mission-fields there are most important posts that call
in vain for re-enforcements. At home supplies can be had to meet
any emergency within a very short time; but on the mission-field we
often must wait years for the right man. I left Kansas City in the
morning, and my successor, a very worthy and successful man,
arrived in the evening of the same day. But out in Burma I have
pleaded for years for one man to re-enforce the mission. The
Arlington Church, which I was serving, was then and is now a very
enjoyable pastorate—one in which the people, always cherish their
pastor, and better, where they have from the founding of the Church
cordially supported every effort for the salvation of men. The decision
to leave that Church to go half way round the world to a people I had
never seen, was largely due to the fact that we were needed most on
this picket-line of missions, and good men, who for any reason could
not go to the foreign fields, could be found to take up promptly the
work I laid down at home.
The farewells in Kansas City were of the cheerful and happy kind
that send missionaries on their way to their peculiar missions strong
in heart. Arlington Church spoke its own farewell in a reception to
their pastor and his family, while Grand Avenue Church, the
Methodists of Kansas City, followed with a general reception to the
outgoing missionaries. This general gathering was under the
direction of the pastor, Dr. Jesse Bowman Young, and Dr. O. M.
Stewart, the presiding elder. The latter sounded the note of
cheerfulness for the farewell. He said, “Let us have nothing of a
funeral sort about this reception.” We have always thanked him for
the cheerful and hopeful tone which ran all through the meeting. Dr.
Young was of the same spirit, and in his address, which at one
moment bordered on the emotional at the thought of a long parting
from those to whom he had been one of the best of friends,
recovered himself by saying, “If you discover anything suspicious in
my eyes, charge it up to the hayfever.” These good brethren did
more than they knew to set a standard of joyful anticipation on the
part of the Church and the outgoing missionaries in the honorable
service to which they were called, that toned up their courage when
facing the actual separation from home ties. This was of very great
value to us who were leaving a very enjoyable pastorate, a native
land in which we had taken deep root, and most of all, an aged
father and mother.
We left Kansas City on September 3, 1890, and after a little over
two months spent in resting and arranging our affairs, we sailed from
New York for Liverpool on November 12th. The closing hours in New
York were very different from those in Kansas City, and made it
appear very real to us that we were being plucked up from the home
land and transplanted to a foreign country. We had no acquaintances
at all in New York, except one of the Missionary Secretaries, who
had visited us in Kansas City. He and his associates were as kind as
they could be; but then as now, they were men worked beyond their
strength with the burdens of business there is upon them, and at that
particular time were hurried to get off to Boston, to the annual
Missionary Committee meeting, and they had to tell us a hasty
farewell at the Mission Rooms, and leave us to go alone to the ship.
While our sailing was more lonely than that of most missionaries, yet
it is now the custom to make very little out of the departure of men
and women to mission-fields, however distant. The older
missionaries contrast this formal dispatch of recruits with the custom
of forty years ago, when men still in active service, were first sent
out. Then it was the plan to have the new missionaries gathered in
one or more churches, and after speeches and exchange of good-
will all around, to send them forth with the feeling that their outgoing
on this great mission was a matter of moment to the whole Church. It
is presumable that custom may change in this matter from time to
time, and especially as the number and frequency of the departure of
missionaries increase; but it is certain that the departure of
missionaries to our distant fields on this, the highest mission of the
Church, can not be made less of than it has been in recent years.
We sailed on the steamship City of New York, the largest and
swiftest ship then afloat. She loosed her moorings at five o’clock in
the morning of November 12th. It was a gloomy morning with a cold
rain, and though I was on deck to note any objects of interest amidst
the gloom, nothing at all of importance was in view, save the Statue
of Liberty holding its light aloft in the harbor. No departure from the
shores of the home-land could have been less cheering and
romantic. But as the great ship made her way out to sea, there was a
peculiar satisfaction in the feeling that came over us, that we were
actually on our way to Burma. Some time before sailing, it had been
decided that we would go there, making headquarters at Rangoon,
the capital of that province of the Indian Empire.
Our voyage across the Atlantic was uneventful for the most part,
but not uninteresting. On a great ship one has a good opportunity to
study his fellow-passengers. One among our company has since
become an international character, and even then had become
widely known. This personage was none other than Paul Kruger,
President, then and since, of the Transvaal Republic. We then
thought of Majuba Hill and its consequences, but could not foresee
that this son of the African velt would, before ten years had passed,
throw so large a part of the world into turmoil and lead in a great war.
I was impressed with his strong leonine features, and the less heroic
fact that he was one of the first among the passengers to yield to the
power of a rough sea.
Four days out we ran into a great storm that lasted nearly two
days. Up to that time we were making a quick passage, but the wind
and waves soon destroyed all hopes of making a high record. The
storm was worst at midnight, and as we were being rolled until it was
hardly possible to remain in our berths, the ammonia pipes broke
and flooded the lower cabins with gas. Our cabin was located near
that part of the ship where the trouble occurred, but no one was
seriously injured. A similar thing recently happened on the same ship
in a storm on the Atlantic, and again the suffocating gas spread
through the ship with one fatality and a number of prostrations.
Landing at Liverpool, we went to London for ten days, returning
to the former place to take the first ship direct for Rangoon. There
are two general routes from English ports to points in India. By one
you travel across the continent, and usually take ship at some
Mediterranean port, and sail to Bombay. By the other you sail via
Gibraltar, and so go by sea all the way. Our route was the latter
course, and at the time we went out there was only one line of
steamers, the Patrick Henderson, direct from English ports to
Rangoon. We took passage on a new vessel, the steamship Pegu,
making its third voyage. “What a strange name for a ship!” we said.
We soon learned that the name was taken from an old, ruined city of
Burma, and that all the company’s steamers bear the name of some
city, ancient or modern, in the land of Burma. So, at the very docks,
as we started Eastward, we met a name suggestive of the ancient
history of the land of our future labors. In the appointments of the
steamer we were much impressed with the fact that we had no
arrangement for heating the vessel, but every plan for thorough
ventilation. We found it very cold on board until we passed the Suez
Canal. Otherwise the appointments were every way satisfactory, and
the fare reasonable.
This good ship made but one voyage more under its Scotch
ownership. It was then sold to the Spaniards and renamed the
Alicante. This circumstance became of much interest to us at a later
date, when this ship was the first to be loaded with defeated Spanish
troops at Santiago.
The outward voyage had its many objects of interest to the
passengers going out for the first time. We sailed in plain view of the
Portuguese and Spanish coasts, but were disappointed in passing
Gibraltar at night. The next day, however, we were charmed with a
magnificent view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Southern Spain,
as they lifted their snowy heights into cloudless skies, and their
vineclad slopes dropped away to the level of the sea. For nearly a
whole day we sailed close by the picturesque shores of Sardinia.
Here we noted a singular confusion of the compass by reason of
being magnetized by the land. As the good ship swung off from the
southern cape of the island, it made two great curves to correct the
erratic state of the compass. We entered the harbor of Naples in the
full floodlight of a Mediterranean noon. The afternoon was spent in
the city. Our party was not favorably impressed with the gay people
in their holiday attire. It seems they have many holidays of the like
kind. In the evening we sailed southward; and as darkness closed
around us, distant Vesuvius sent its fiery glow upward on the black
mass of overhanging cloud, making a lurid night scene. In the
morning we woke in plain view of the great volcanic cone of
Stromboli, rising out of the sea. We were near the island, which
seems to have no land except the volcano itself; yet houses nestle
here and there around its base. What a choice for a home—at the
base of an actual volcano! The weather was perfect as we sailed
through the Straits of Messina, but great Mount Ætna, which we
hoped to see, was hid in clouds.
The second stop in our journey was at Port Said. The Suez
Canal is the gateway of the nations. Port Said is its northern
entrance. It is under international control, and hence its government
is less responsible than that of almost any other city. It is one of the
most wicked cities of the world. Representatives of all races are
congregated there. It is not our purpose to describe this city, but to
point out that here for the first time we had a glimpse of the Orient.
The fellaheen of Egypt loaded our ship with coal, carrying great
baskets on their heads. We arrived in the night, and the coaling
began almost immediately. My wife and I got out of our cabin before
day to go on deck and see these people at work by the light of
torches. A strange, weird sight it was to Western eyes; and their
shouting in strange tongues emphasized the fact that we had indeed
come to a strange land.
The Suez Canal is the natural dividing-line between the Western
and the Eastern civilizations, between the cold Northlands and the
perpetually tropical countries of Southern Asia. Looking westward
and northward, you find energy put to practical account; looking
eastward, you find lethargy and life no more aggressive that it must
be to keep peoples as they have been for a thousand years.
Westward you greet progress, but Eastward life has been stagnated
for ages, and only stirs as it is acted upon from the West. Westward
you have an increasing degree of prosperity and material comforts
and advantages of modern civilization, but Eastward you have such
poverty among the millions as can not be conceived by people more
favored. Westward you have civilizations never content with present
attainment; but Eastward you have peoples whose highest ideals are
only to be and to do what their fathers were and did before them.
The West seeks to produce new things, but the East condemns all
improvement for no other reason than that it is new. All this, and
much more, is suggested by the Suez Canal, from which you plunge
downward into Asiatic civilization. Climatically you are henceforth to
know only the tropics, a climate, so far as Southern Asia is
concerned, that you will come to know henceforth as dividing the
year into two seasons, “Three months very hot, and nine months
very much hotter.” At Port Said you will be informed of the change
that is just ahead of you. Whatever you may have bought in New
York or London, you will need one more article of dress at Port Said
—a helmet, to protect your head from the tropical sun. You will never
see a day in Southern Asia in which you can go forth in the noonday
sun with an ordinary hat, or without a helmet, except at your peril;
and most of the time you will wear that protection for your head from
early morning until five in the evening, or later. You will have another
indication that you are going down into the tropics. If you have made
your journey, as we did, in the colder months, the sunniest place on
the deck has been the most comfortable until you arrive at Port Said;
but there they raise double canvas over the whole ship, and from
that on, as long as you go to and fro in the tropical seas, you will
never travel a league by sea that you do not have that same double
canvas above you when the sun is in the heavens. No wonder the
Suez Canal means so much besides commerce or travel to all who
have passed through it to Southern Asia!
Through the fifteen hundred miles of the Red Sea we took our
way. Then the Gulf of Aden was traversed, and next through the
Arabian Sea our good ship bore us on our journey. The heat, like
very hot summer at home, was upon us, though we were out at sea
in December. Coming on deck one morning before other passengers
were astir, I was delighted to see the green hills of Ceylon a few
miles to our left. We had rounded the island in the night. The decks
had been scrubbed in the early morning, as usual; the ocean was
smooth, and the tropical sun flooded sea and land, while the
sweetest odor of spices filled the air. At once I thought of “Ceylon’s
spicy breezes,” but I suddenly noted that the wind was toward the
shore, which lay some miles away, and then I was prepared for the
sentiment of the chief steward who had sprinkled spices out of the
ship stores over the wet deck to please the passengers’ sense of
smell as they came forth to give their morning greetings to this
emerald isle of the Indian Ocean. In rounding Ceylon we reached our
lowest latitude, six degrees north. We were still six days’ sail from
Burma, and our course took us nearly northeast from this point. The
entire voyage from the Suez Canal to Burma was made under
cloudless skies and through calm waters. A day from Rangoon we
passed near the beautiful little Cocoa Islands, while the Andamans
showed above the horizon far to the southward. It is remarkable how
much interest there is among passengers when a ship is sighted, or
land appears on a long voyage. These Cocoa Islands are important
as being guides to vessels homeward or outward bound, and they
mark the line between the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Martahan.
An important lighthouse has been maintained there for the past fifty
years. The Andamans are shrouded in gloomy mystery, due to the
fact that they are used as a penal colony of criminals transported
from India. On the 31st of December, 1890, after passing several
light-ships, we came, about noon, in sight of the low-lying shores of
Burma. We had been thirty-five days from Liverpool, and were
getting weary of the sea, to say nothing of our curiosity to land in a
country new to us. But no land could be less interesting than this
shore-line of Burma, first sighted on coming in from the sea. It lies
just above the sea-level, and besides a fringe of very small
shrubbery, and here and there a cocoanut palm-tree, it is absolutely
expressionless. After lying at anchor for three hours at the mouth of
the Rangoon River, waiting for the incoming tide, we began the last
twenty miles of our journey up the broad river to the city of Rangoon.
The passengers were made up mostly of people who were
returning to Burma after a furlough in England. The anticipation of
friendly greetings and the appearance of every familiar object along
the river created a quiver of pleasant excitement among them. Our
missionary party were almost the only ones who had not special
friends in Rangoon to meet them.
Sway Dagon Pagoda
Presently all eyes were turned up the river as the second officer
called out, “There is the Great Pagoda.” Yes, this, the greatest shrine
of the Buddhist world, rising from a little hilltop just behind the main
part of the city of Rangoon, lifted its gilded and glistening form
hundreds of feet skyward. This is the first object of special
importance that is looked for by every traveler going up the Rangoon
River. It is seen before any public building comes into view. But
presently the smoke from the great chimneys of the large rice mills of
Rangoon appeared, and then the city was outlined along a river
frontage of two or three miles. The city has no special attractions, as
viewed from the harbor; but the whole river presents an animated
scene, always interesting even to any one familiar with it, but full of
startling surprises to the newcomer to the East. With the single
exception of Port Said, our missionary party had seen nothing of
Oriental life. The panoramic view of that river and shore life seen on
that last day of 1890 will remain a lifetime in the minds of our party.
Steamers of many nations and sailing-vessels under a score of flags,
native crafts of every description, steam launches by the dozen, and
half a thousand small native boats of a Chinese pattern, called
“sampans,” moved swiftly about the river, while two or three
thousand people crowded the landing and the river front. It is
possible that half a hundred nationalities were represented in that
throng, but to us strangers there were only two distinctions to be
made out clearly: a few men and women with fair skins, and the
remainder of the multitude men of darker hue. “Europeans and
natives” is the general distinction used in all India.
Some incidents at such moments in our lives, as our landing in
this strange country, make profound impressions far above their
actual importance. It was just six o’clock in the evening as we made
fast to the wharf. Suddenly, as I faced the new world life of labor just
before me, and began to contrast it with that of the past, I
remembered that just eleven years before, on that day and at that
hour, allowing for difference of latitude, I stepped off the cars in a
college town, and parted with my old life as a farmer boy for the new
life of a college student. A great change that proved to be, and this
was destined to prove even more in contrast with life hitherto. The
curious circumstance was that the two transitions corresponded by
the year and hour.
I awoke suddenly to the fact of great loneliness. There were
multitudes of people, but in the whole company not a familiar face.
There were some whose names we had heard, and they were ready
to give us a cordial welcome as fellow-workers, but we did not know
them from all the others in the throng in whose thoughts we had no
place. For myself, I have never had a more lonely moment, even
when unattended in the Burma jungles or lost on the mountains at
night.
Another incident, of a painful kind, occurred. As I stood beside
the ship’s doctor, who had been coming and going to India for thirty
years, he volunteered information of the people who were boarding
the ship to greet expected friends. One young lady passenger was
greeted by her sister, whose husband stood by her side. She was a
fair English lady; he was a tall, well-proportioned man of good
features, but he was very dark. The doctor said: “That young lady is
destined to a great disappointment. Her sister is married to a
Eurasian, and she, as an English girl, will have no social recognition
among English people here because she has that Eurasian
relationship.” To my inquiries of interest, he said many things about
these people, in whose veins flow the blood of European and Asiatic,
concluding with the following slander on these people, “They inherit
the vices of both Europeans and Asiatics and the virtues of neither.” I
refer to this expression here to show how such unjust expressions
fall from careless tongues; for I have heard it scores of times,
breathing out unkind, even cruel injustice. It is a slander that is not
often rebuked with the energy its injustice calls for. As I will discuss
this people in another chapter, I only say here that for ten years I
have been connected with them, and while they have their
weaknesses, this charge against them is entirely groundless.
We were presently greeted by the small band of Methodist
missionaries and some of their friends, and taken immediately to our
Girls’ School in the heart of the town. Here we rested in easy-chairs
of an uncouth pattern, but which we have hundreds of times since
had occasion to prove capable of affording great comfort. While
resting and making the acquaintance of Miss Scott, our hostess, an
agent of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, I was impressed
with several features of our new surroundings. Though it was New-
Year’s Eve, the whole house was wide open, and three sides of the
sitting-room had open venetian blinds instead of walls, to let in the
air.
Then we were quickly conscious of the noise, mostly of human
voices, speaking or shouting strange speech in every direction,
which the wooden open-plank house caught up much as a violin
does its sound, and multiplied without transferring them into music.
We came, by later painful experiences, to know that one of the
enemies of nerves and the working force of the missionary in
Rangoon is the ceaseless noise from human throats that seems
inseparable from this Oriental city. I have been in some other noisy
cities, but, as Bishop Thoburn once remarked, our location in
Rangoon was “the noisiest place in the world.” Before these thoughts
had taken full possession of our minds, we were greeted by another
surprise. As we leaned back in the easy-chairs and our eyes sought
the high ceiling of the room, there we saw small lizards moving
about, sometimes indeed stationary, but more often running or
making quick leaps as they caught sluggish beetles or unsuspecting
flies from the ceiling. We counted nine of them in plain view,
seemingly enjoying themselves, unmindful of the presence of the
residents of the building or the nerves or tastes of the new arrivals.
A watch-night service was held that night intended for sailors
and soldiers especially, to which I went, while my wife remained and
rested at the school with our children. At the service I saw for the first
time what is so common in all like gatherings in Eastern cities, the
strange mingling of all people who speak the English language.
Being a seaport, the sailors from every European land were present,
and, so far as they can be secured, attend this wholesome service,
while the soldiers from the garrison come in crowds, and others
interested in these meetings are there also. Every shade of
Eurasians was present. Some of the people whom I saw that night
for the first time became my friends and co-laborers in the Church
and mission for the entire time of which I write. Late that night, or in
the earliest hour of the new year, I fell asleep with my latest
conscious thought, “We are in Burma.”
CHAPTER II
First Year in Burma
W E were wakened early on January 1, 1891, by the harsh

cawing of a myriad of crows, which roost in the shade-trees of
the public streets and private yards. We came afterwards to know
these annoying pests, that swarm over Rangoon all day long, as a
tribe of thieves full of all cunning and audacity. The first exhibition of
their pilfering given us, was that first morning when the early tea and
toast, always brought to you on rising in India, was passed into our
room and placed in reach of the children. The crows had been
perched on the window-sill before this, restlessly watching us within
the room. But on our turning for a moment from the tray on which the
toast was placed, the crows swooped upon it, and carried it off out of
the window. This is but a sample of the audacious annoyance
suffered from their beaks and claws continually. They are in country
places also, but not so plentifully as here in the cities, where they
literally swarm. Were it to our purpose we could write pages of these
petty and cunning robberies of which they are guilty. A very common
sight is, when a coolie is going through the streets with a basket of
rice on his head, to see the crows swoop down and fill their mouths
with the rice, and be off again before the man knows their intention,
or has time even to turn around. It must have been some such sight
as this in ancient Egypt, familiar to Pharaoh’s baker, that caused him
to dream of the birds eating the bread out of the basket that he
carried on his head, and that foreshadowed the dire results to
himself. Those “birds” must have been “crows” of the Rangoon
species.
I could not wait long that first morning in Rangoon, and the first
of a new year, to get out into the streets astir with human life. I took
my first impression of many specimens of humanity that passed in
view. While the common distinctions in dress, complexion, manners,
and occupations, which mean so much when you come to know their
significance, were not recognized in this first view of the people, I did
get a very definite impression of two classes—one well formed and
well fed, and the other class, those poor weaklings, mostly of the
depressed peoples of India, who migrate to Burma. Of the latter, I
wrote at the time to friends in America, that they were specimens of
the human race that had about run their course, and must die away
from sheer weakness. Later conclusions do not differ materially from
this first decision. But I did learn later that the fine-looking people of
strong physique were Burmese, and that the province of Burma,
generally, has very few peoples of any race that compare in
feebleness with some of the immigrants from India that flock into the
cities, such as Rangoon. It is chiefly what the traveler sees in coast
towns like Rangoon, which leads so many transient passers-by to
wrong conclusions concerning Oriental countries. In Rangoon, many
other peoples are more in evidence than the Burmese.
After that early walk and breakfast, which came about ten
o’clock, the usual time, I met with Rev. Mr. Warner, and took in
charge the affairs of our mission. It is a simple thing for a preacher to
go from one pastoral charge to another in America, in every respect
very much like the Church and community he has always served; but
it is entirely different to go to a distant and unfamiliar country, and
take up work essentially different from anything you ever had to do
with before. Then, at home it is the custom for each man to be
occupied with some one specific work and its obligations; but on the
mission-field, such as Burma has been until now, there is such a
variety of interests as loads every missionary with the work that
ought to be distributed between two or three. That morning I learned
that we had an English Church in Rangoon which supported its own
pastor; an English school that numbered nearly two hundred pupils,
and an Orphanage for the poor Eurasians and Anglo-Indian children.
There was also a work among the seamen that visited the port. A
woman’s workshop had been founded some time before for helping
the poor Eurasian, and other women, to earn a living with the needle.
There was also preaching going on among the Tamils and Telegus,
some converts and a fair day-school being conducted among them.
This work was mostly in Rangoon; but some preaching was done in
the villages round about, and one exhorter was holding a little
congregation of Tamils at Toungoo, one hundred and sixty miles
north from Rangoon. A further account of Methodism will be given
later, and it is only necessary here to tell how the work appeared to
me that morning when I began my labors in Burma.
Methodist Church, Rangoon
We had a modest wooden church and also a parsonage, a fair-

sized building for the school, and another of equal size for the
Orphanage. Besides these buildings, we had a couple of residence
bungalows, intended for rental for the support of the Orphanage, but
for which we were badly in debt. Considering the small size of the
mission, our debts were large and troublesome. They were incurred
out of the emergencies of our work, and were not the result of bad
management in any way. These debts were to be met at once, and
added much to my concern for the mission.
Another embarrassing feature of the finances of the mission was
found in this, that we had very small missionary appropriations, and
the time had been not long before when our workers in Burma had
no money from home. The beginning of the mission had been made
entirely without funds from America.
This was the more apparent when we look at the distribution of
the missionaries. I was to take the pastorate of the English Church,
and receive my salary from it; Miss Files, the principal of the Girls’
High School, had never had any salary, except what the school could
pay her; Miss Scott, principal of the Orphanage, had half salary; Miss
Perkins, the new missionary, alone had a salary from the Woman’s
Foreign Missionary Society. Mr. Warner had less than full salary,
though appointed to native work. We had, also, a number of
teachers all paid locally, and supplies in the mission-work, none of
whom received a salary from America. Here was an outline of a
situation in what was called a “self-supporting” mission-field. How to
pay debts, keep all this work going, and make advance in mission
operations with our limited money, was my greatest responsibility.
There had never been a dollar given to the mission from America for
property. The problem was easy of statement, but difficult of solution.
To plunge right into this work, my first day in the country, and
immediately become the responsible head of the district, was
beginning mission-work with vigor and without delay. I have learned
since to believe it a serious misfortune that any missionary should be
so overwhelmed with work and responsibility on entering a foreign
mission-field. All this, too, when we had yet to adjust ourselves to life
in the tropics.
We were about to prove what it meant to be suddenly dropped
down into the heart of an Oriental city, and there adjust ourselves to
the most trying conditions we had ever known. The parsonage
belonging to the English Church, which we occupied, shared the lot
with the church building. At the time the church and parsonage was
to be built, it was the policy of the Government to give a grant of land
to any religious society for a church or parsonage. The city is
blocked out in rectangular shape, but unwisely made very narrow
and long. The blocks are eight hundred feet long by one hundred
and fifteen feet wide. Our lot included one end of a block, and was
one hundred feet deep. On this lot stood the church and parsonage,
facing the main street. When the location was chosen, it was a fairly
satisfactory site on which to have a residence, and in a Western
country, with Western conditions, it might have contained a fairly
comfortable residence; but in Rangoon the natives soon began to
crowd into poorly constructed buildings all around the parsonage,
and the filth, that so rapidly accumulates in an Oriental city, piled up
everywhere. The only sewerage was in open ditches that ran on
three sides of our residence. The stench of these sewers was ever
present in our nostrils, and especially offensive in the rainless
season. But the worst condition was the incessant noise made by
the natives. This neighborhood was occupied almost entirely by
Madassis, who have harsh, strident voices, and speak with a
succession of guttural sounds. They are always shouting, and
quietness is almost unknown to them. They quarrel incessantly. At
the time we lived in this locality there were six hundred of these
noisy people living within a hundred yards of the parsonage. They
kept no hours for rest. All day and all night the noise went on.
Sometimes, of course, they slept, and the native can sleep in bedlam
and not even dream. But there are hundreds astir at all hours of the
day and night. Then there were thousands of passers-by who at all
hours added their voices to the din. Besides, a heavy traffic was
carried on on two sides of us. The streets were metaled, and every
wheel and hoof added to the uproar.
The parsonage was of the uncouth architectural plan
characteristic of Burma, roomy and arranged well enough for comfort
in that country, had the surroundings been endurable. But being
placed upon posts, some ten feet from the ground to the first floor,
and the floor and walls being made of single thicknesses of teak
planks, these multitudinous sounds of the neighborhood were
gathered up and multiplied as a violin gathers the sounds of the
strings, and this discordant din was poured into our ears. Added to
all this noise was the intense heat, which even in the coolest part of
the year is very great, and you have conditions of life that tax you to
the utmost. My wife and I have pretty steady nerves; but in the
thirteen months we tried to live in the parsonage we did not have
more than twenty nights of unbroken sleep. Just after we entered
this residence, we received our first mail from home, and in the
papers to hand we read the speech of the senior missionary
secretary at the Missionary Committee meeting in Boston, held at
the time we were sailing from New York, in which he dwelt at length,
“on the luxury of missionary life in India.” I promptly sent him an
invitation to spend the last week preceding the next Missionary
Committee meeting in our guest-chamber, overlooking and
overhearing all that happens among this noisy throng of Tamils. I felt
that I had learned more of the actual conditions of life in an Oriental
city in one week, than this good man had learned in all the years of
his missionary official life. He did not accept the invitation.
Natives of Burma
When one is overworked with unusual duties that tax nerves to
the utmost, and then lives in perpetual noise and heat day and night,
he has the ideal conditions for a short missionary career. We were to
prove all that this meant within one year from landing in the country.
Surprises and disappointments in the working force of a mission,
at least in its earlier and less well organized state, occur with great
frequency. Within less than three months, my missionary colleague,
Mr. Warner, and his wife left us, and took work in another mission.
He had been with our mission less than two years, having been sent
out from America. It may be said here that such changes, so early in
a missionary’s career, do not generally argue well for the stability of
purpose or settled convictions of the missionary, and do not usually
help the mission to which a change is made. But in our case it added
to our difficulties, as the Burmese work, to begin which Mr. Warner
was appointed, did not get started for some years afterward. There
was no other man to take up his work, and there could be no one
supplied for some time. This situation, coming so soon after I took up
the work with the high hopes of a new beginner, added to the
complications.
The heat increased from January onward. The work became
very laborious, largely owing to failure to get rest at night. In May, I
began to be troubled with a strange numbness in my arms. This
gradually spread to most of the muscles of the body, and began to
affect my head seriously. At the same time, the heat, especially any
direct ray of the sun, caused very distressing nervous symptoms.
Having all my life worked hard, and having a body that had stood
almost all kinds of strain and seemed none the worse for it, I at the
beginning expected to throw off these symptoms quickly. But when I
did not succeed in this, I consulted physicians and found that they
were puzzled as much as myself. Had it been possible to go to some
cooler place and take rest at the beginning of this disorder, it is likely
that I could have met the difficulty and overcome it quickly; but there
was no chance to leave the work, no place to go to, and no one to
relieve me. Steadily for five months the trouble increased, until it was
impossible even to read in an attentive way, though under the
excitement of a Sabbath’s congregation I could talk to the people. In
October, only a little over nine months after landing in Burma, Bishop
Thoburn peremptorily ordered me to the hills of India for a change.
He temporarily supplied my place at Rangoon.
I left Rangoon on the evening of the 10th of October on this
painful flight for health. My wife remained and did hard service, all
too hard as the case proved, to give the English congregations
attention during my absence. This early flight from my work with the
uncertainties of my ailment, and the long distance to the Indian Hills,
which as we supposed at the time, was the nearest place to get
above the heat of the plains, and the condition of the work in my
absence, and the added burden to my wife, all combined to give the
occasion a serious aspect.
I took passage on a little vessel of the British India Steam
Navigation Company, which has a large fleet of steamers in these
tropical waters. I traveled after this many times on steamers of this
company, and always found the trip of four days to Calcutta very
interesting. The sea breeze modifies the heat until you can be in
comparative comfort. The officers are usually courteous, but
somewhat reserved, for the most part. Perhaps this show of dignity
is assumed to support the important office they hold. It may be that it
is a National characteristic also. The engineers, who number about
the same on each ship as the officers, and have about as much
responsibility, and are equally capable men, are usually very free
and sociable. The officers are generally Englishmen, and the
engineers Scotchmen. I have been greatly surprised to find how
approachable most Scotchmen are. Being of a social disposition
myself, I usually get in touch with both classes; but I have secured
the most friendly response from the Scotch. This has been generally
true on land also.
The Bay of Bengal is a stormy water during the monsoon, from
May until October. At the latter time the wind turns into the northeast,
and one or two cyclones generally form as it turns the rain currents
back to the southwest, from whence they came. Our captain was
nervous as we rounded the land and made for the open sea, lest we
be met by a cyclone. But instead of a storm, the sea was as smooth
as a sea of glass all the way to the mouth of the Hoogli River, where

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2.5.3 Schottky Diode Type Gas Sensor ........................................ 68

3. Piezoelectric Sensors ...................................................................................77

4. Fiber Optic Sensors .................................................................................... 131

5. Thermal Sensors ......................................................................................... 147

6. Magnetic Sensors........................................................................................ 159

Index ..................................................................................................................... 171

This book came about as a result of a need to present fundamental material to

Aravind Reghu completed his bachelors degree in electronics and commu-

1.2 The Human Body as a Sensor System

exposure to sound levels over 90 db is considered to be dangerous and ear

1.3 Sensors in an Automobile

Electronic display instrument

Traﬃc and road information

consist of a closed tube of calcia or yttria stabilized zirconia (CSZ or YSZ).

Engine Exhaust Catalytic

1.4 Classification of Sensors

1.5 Example of a Gas Sensor: The Taguchi Sensor

1.6 The Sensor as a Passive or Active Element

1.7 The Sensor as Part of a Measurement System

be produced. An example of the sensor being used to optimize the per-

1.8 Sensor Properties

Measurand concentration (C)

0 ≤ C ≤ C1: below the sensor response threshold level

The sensitivity parameter, S, may be used when evaluating a single sensor

1.9 Historical Development of Sensors

on a single sensor. Often there is little or no collaboration between differ-

backgrounds working in a coordinated fashion. Unfortunately, this has not

recent developments in materials and microelectronics technology, these

1.10 Sensor System

Sample Sensing Sensor

sensing elements and intelligently monitor the sensing element output.

5. The response of a sensor Xr vs. concentration, C, is parabolic for

a. Obtain the minimum concentration observable.

2.2 Conductimetric Sensors

Metal Insulating Conducting

in a complicated fashion. If aluminum is used as the contact metal, a

where k = Boltzman’s constant, φ = Potential barrier height, q = electron

where h = Planck’s constant, and m = electron mass.

where v = applied voltage, d = oxide thickness, and ε = oxide dielectric

The previous discussion has been restricted to the DC case. However, in

μ = q(nμn + pμp) (2.6)

2.3 Semiconducting Metal Oxide Sensors