Thiele worked with Mauricio Pereira da Cunha, assistant professor in the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who developed the sensor. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) awarded Thiele its Student Award at a meeting in Montreal last fall.

Thiele made and successfully demonstrated a hydrogen sensor using langasite crystals. Langasite is a family of materials that have several beneficial properties for sensing purposes. It has proved to be more sensitive and stable at high temperatures than other sensing platforms such as quartz crystals.

In his project, Thiele equipped a langasite sensor with two electrodes made of the element palladium. For sixteen weeks, the sensor detected hydrogen gas at several different concentrations. Langasite has proven to work reliably at 750 degrees C.

Thiele's poster was titled “Dual Configuration High Temperature Hydrogen Sensor on LGS SAW Devices.” Detecting hydrogen is important to the efficient operation of fuel cells, jet engines and power plants.

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