Room-size computers shrank down to a more manageable, desk top size when electrical components were miniaturized.

Nearly everything else may be headed in the same direction.

An electrical, chemical, biological, mechanical or any combination of systems could be shrunk down to a scale measured in microns?100 of which make up the width of a human hair.

Nanotechnology, developing hand in hand with microtechnology, takes sizes down to a molecular level.

When he heard one hand could hold all of the microscale sensors used to trigger inflation of a car’s airbag, the statement stuck with Tim Ameel, an associate professor of mechanical engineering.

“The point of that is there is a huge potential for big money in small things,” he said.

Microscale technology may follow in the footsteps of microelectronics which has flourished over the past several decades and formed the foundation of the modern computer industry.

“As a field, microsystems is going to be huge. It will be as big or bigger than microelectronics,” said Steve Blair, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. “Thirty years ago, we underestimated microelectronics, I certainly hope I will not underestimate microsystems.”

As it stands now, the University of Utah lacks the facilities to reserve a place for itself at the forefront of microsystems technology, he said.

But some growth has already begun.

This fall, the U set graduate students to work studying microsystems with a $2.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

“IGERT is just the beginning of what I see we can do on this campus,” Blair said.

The grant emphasizes research into heat and fluids on a microscale, hoping to fill in some of the knowledge gaps in the field.

“It comes down to how systems behave on a small scale,” Blair said. “Now we are in that phase where you have groups all over the world solving some of those problems.”

Some developments are already out there. Microscopic sensors in a car’s airbag detect sudden changes in velocity and trigger inflation. Miniature nozzles on ink jet printers dispense the ink in dots. And complex chemical processes are being condensed down to fit on a tiny chip about one square centimeter in size.

More technology is on the way.

Instead of having blood drawn and sent to a laboratory for testing, a sensor under development in the U’s engineering labs could conduct multiple tests on a drop of blood, all in about 10 minutes, according to Blair, who supervises the research.

A sample derived from the blood flows through successive chambers molded in rubber and pressed against glass.

If fragments of DNA or other biological molecules are present in the blood, they bind with their complements in the chamber and fluoresce.

Each chamber could test for the presence of a different molecule.

Potential applications are numerous, from detecting biological warfare agents to diagnosing different types of HIV infection, according to Blair.

Layne Williams, a doctoral student in bioengineering, is working to speed up the process. To accomplish this, the sample must mix more effectively in the chamber. But the turbulent fluid flow that occurs on a larger scale is limited on a microscale?where fluid generally flows smoothly.

To get around this, Williams is altering the design of the chambers, hoping to alter the flow so as to encourage interaction between molecules.

“This is a whole field where we are trying to understand fundamentally what is going on,” Blair said. “The notions of mechanics are different. The same forces are present, but some are more dominant on small scale.”

For instance, on a large scale, an object’s behavior is governed by its mass. But on a small scale, surface forces, like friction, are more influential.

“That’s something that’s hard to deal with, something we haven’t had to deal with before,” Blair said.

And while some differences are accounted for, according to Ameel, some are not.

“You see things you don’t anticipate in experiments that are not explained by traditional theory,” he said.

Fluids may act differently, but so far, measurements of how they travel through microtubes have been error-riddled and inconclusive.

“A lot of data that are out there suggest that changes occur,” Ameel said. “A lot of this data is suspect.”

The uncertainty makes it difficult to compare microscale measurements and macroscale theory.

With fine, copper-colored tube the width of a hair, John Elsnab, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering, hopes to figure out if the velocity profile of a fluid flowing through the tube deviates from that seen on a larger one.

The key is a new technique. A laser hits the tube, causing the liquid inside to emit light. A camera takes rapid pictures, which researchers will compare to determine velocity.

“We think we’ll get better measurements through this technique because we won’t have the errors introduced by other techniques,” he said.

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