Numerical and experimental characterizations of low frequency MEMS AE sensors

Hossain Saboonchi; Didem Ozevin

doi:10.1117/12.2009245

19 April 2013 Numerical and experimental characterizations of low frequency MEMS AE sensors

Hossain Saboonchi, Didem Ozevin

Proceedings Volume 8692, Sensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2013; 869211 (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2009245
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2013, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

In this paper, new MEMS Acoustic Emission (AE) sensors are introduced. The transduction principle of the sensors is capacitance due to gap change. The sensors are numerically modeled using COMSOL Multiphysics software in order to estimate the resonant frequencies and capacitance values, and manufactured using MetalMUMPS process. The process includes thick metal layer (20 μm) made of nickel for freely vibration layer and polysilicon layer as the stationary layer. The metal layer provides a relatively heavy mass so that the spring constant can be designed high for low frequency sensor designs in order to increase the collapse voltage level (proportional to the stiffness), which increases the sensor sensitivity. An insulator layer is deposited between stationary layer and freely vibration layer, which significantly reduces the potential of stiction as a failure mode. As conventional AE sensors made of piezoelectric materials cannot be designed for low frequencies (<300 kHz) with miniature size, the MEMS sensor frequencies are tuned to 50 kHz and 200 kHz. The each sensor contained several parallel-connected cells with an overall size of approximately 250μm × 500 μm. The electromechanical characterizations are performed using high precision impedance analyzer and compared with the numerical results, which indicate a good fit. The initial mechanical characterization tests in atmospheric pressure are conducted using pencil lead break simulations. The proper sensor design reduces the squeeze film damping so that it does not require any vacuum packaging. The MEMS sensor responses are compared with similar frequency piezoelectric AE sensors.

Citation Download Citation

Hossain Saboonchi and Didem Ozevin "Numerical and experimental characterizations of low frequency MEMS AE sensors", Proc. SPIE 8692, Sensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2013, 869211 (19 April 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2009245

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KEYWORDS

Sensors

Microelectromechanical systems

Capacitance

Nickel

Manufacturing

Silicon

Aluminum

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