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Design, simulation and fabrication of a MEMS accelerometer by using sequential and pulsed-mode DRIE processes

Gholamzadeh, R ; Sharif University of Technology | 2017

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1088/1361-6439/27/1/015022
  3. Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing , 2017
  4. Abstract:
  5. A sensitive half-bridge MEMS accelerometer fabricated by sequential and pulsed-mode processes is presented in this paper. The proposed accelerometer is analyzed by using conventional equations and the finite element method. The micromachining technology used in this work relies on two processes: sequential and pulsed-mode. In the sequential deep reactive ion etching process, a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen with a trace value of SF6 is used instead of polymeric material in the passivation step. The pulsed-mode process employs periodic hydrogen pulses in continuous fluorine plasma. Because of the continuous nature of this process, plus the in situ passivation caused by the hydrogen pulses, scallop-free sidewalls are achieved and the etch rate is also relatively high. Furthermore, the functional characteristics of the fabricated accelerometer sensor are measured and reported. Measurement results, which are in good agreement with simulations, show that the functional characteristics of the fabricated sensor are as follows: resonance frequency of about 2 kHz, sensitivity of 76 mV g-1 and Brownian noise equivalent acceleration of g . © 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd
  6. Keywords:
  7. Bulk micromachining ; Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) ; Accelerometers ; Composite micromechanics ; Fabrication ; Finite element method ; Micromachining ; Passivation ; Reactive ion etching ; Bulk- micromachining ; Capacitance sensing ; Deep Reactive Ion Etching ; Functional characteristics ; MEMS accelerometer ; Micro electromechanical system (MEMS) ; Micromachining technologies ; Resonance frequencies ; MEMS
  8. Source: Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering ; Volume 27, Issue 1 , 2017 ; 09601317 (ISSN)
  9. URL: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6439/27/1/015022