Ball Wave

Company profile:

Ball Wave Inc. is a startup company founded to develop the technology of the ball SAW sensor a chemical sensor that blossomed from technical seeds sown at Tohoku University for high speed, high sensitivity detection of substances such as trace moisture and multiple gas species, thus helping to lay foundations for safe, secure, clean,sustainable future societies. Ball Wave develops, manufactures, and sells measurement instruments—such as trace-moisture analyzers and gas chromatographs—equipped with ball-SAW sensors. In addition to the high temperature, pressure, and corrosion resistance of crystal spheres, these sensors boast over 100 times the sensitivity of conventional technologies and significantly faster response times.

Solving global problems with a spherical sensor

Features of the ball SAW sensor
The ball SAW sensor, which is the base technology of Ball Wave, is an innovative chemical sensing technology that delivers small size, high speed, and high sensitivity.

• Small size
  Small size due to the use of a special class of ultrasonic waves called surface acoustic waves (SAWs) confined near the surface of a sphere.
• High speed
  Since the circulating SAW passes across the sensitive film many times, a sufficient response to the trace gas molecules can be obtained even with a very thin sensitive film, which helps achieve the high speed response due to short diffusion time of the trace gas molecules within the thin film.
• High sensitivity (x100)
  Although the change in the physical properties of the SAW by the adsorbed gas on the sensitive film is very small during each round-trip around the spherical sensor, the change is amplified and high sensitivity is achieved because the SAW travels an extremely long distance around the sphere.

This makes it possible to measure a diverse range of gases such as trace moisture, hydrogen, natural gas, and mixed organic gases by forming a sensitive film that differs depending on the measurement target on the surface of a tiny quartz crystal ball.

This expands the possibilities for completely new sensing systems that offer a sensitivity around 100 times higher than conventional technology and a fast response, combined with the high-temperature and pressure resistance of a quartz crystal ball.