Design and Application of a High Sensitivity Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor for Low Pressure Conditions
1
College of Computer Science and Technology, Nanjing Tech University, No.30, South Puzhu Road, Pukou District, Nanjing, 211800, China
2
Key Laboratory of MEMS of the Ministry of Education, Southeast University, No.2 Sipailou, Xuanwu District, Nanjing 210096, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Vittorio M. N. Passaro
Sensors 2015, 15(9), 22692-22704; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150922692
Received: 21 July 2015
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Accepted: 31 August 2015
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Published: 8 September 2015
(This article belongs to the Section Physical Sensors)
In this paper, a pressure sensor for low pressure detection (0.5 kPa–40 kPa) is proposed. In one structure (No. 1), the silicon membrane is partly etched to form a crossed beam on its top for stress concentration. An aluminum layer is also deposited as part of the beam. Four piezoresistors are fabricated. Two are located at the two ends of the beam. The other two are located at the membrane periphery. Four piezoresistors connect into a Wheatstone bridge. To demonstrate the stress concentrate effect of this structure, two other structures were designed and fabricated. One is a flat membrane structure (No. 2), the other is a structure with the aluminum beam, but without etched silicon (No. 3). The measurement results of these three structures show that the No.1 structure has the highest sensitivity, which is about 3.8 times that of the No. 2 structure and 2.7 times that of the No. 3 structure. They also show that the residual stress in the beam has some backside effect on the sensor performance.
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Keywords:
piezoresistive; pressure sensor; stress concentration; low pressure
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MDPI and ACS Style
Yu, H.; Huang, J. Design and Application of a High Sensitivity Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor for Low Pressure Conditions. Sensors 2015, 15, 22692-22704. https://doi.org/10.3390/s150922692
AMA Style
Yu H, Huang J. Design and Application of a High Sensitivity Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor for Low Pressure Conditions. Sensors. 2015; 15(9):22692-22704. https://doi.org/10.3390/s150922692
Chicago/Turabian StyleYu, Huiyang, and Jianqiu Huang. 2015. "Design and Application of a High Sensitivity Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor for Low Pressure Conditions" Sensors 15, no. 9: 22692-22704. https://doi.org/10.3390/s150922692
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