  Heat flux sensors have potential in enabling applications that require
tracking of direct and instantaneous thermal energy transfer. To facilitate
their use, the sensors have to be robust and feasible to implement, while
maintaining high sensitivity and a fast response time. However, most
commercially available heat flux sensors are expensive to manufacture and have
insufficient temporal responses. In this paper, a novel microelectromechanical
heat flux sensor structure is proposed. The electrical performance of the
prototype sensors is compared with commercially available heat flux sensors.
Preliminary results show that our sensors have similar sensitivity and faster
response compared to commercial sensors.
