Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Publication Date

2012

Publisher

Elsevier

Source Publication

Procedia Engineering

Source ISSN

1877-7058

Abstract

A piezoelectric Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) cantilever pressure sensor was designed, modeled, fabricated, and tested for sensing the photoacoustic response of gases to terahertz (THz) radiation. The sensing layers were comprised of three thin films; a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) piezoelectric layer sandwiched between two metal contact layers. The sensor materials were deposited on the silicon device layer of a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer, which formed the physical structure of the cantilever. To release the cantilever, a hole was etched through the backside of the wafer and the buried oxide was removed with hydrofluoric acid. Devices were then tested in a custom made THz vacuum test chamber. Cantilever deflection was observed with a laser interferometer in the test chamber and preliminary data indicates the signals were caused by the photoacoustic effect. Future device data will also include the piezoelectric voltage signal analysis.

Comments

Published version. Procedia Engineering, Vol. 47 (2012): 730-733. DOI. © 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Symposium Cracoviense Sp. z.o.o. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Ronald A. Coutu, Jr. was affiliated with the Air Force Institute of Technology at the time of publication.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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