SENSORS BASED ON SiC-AlN MEMS

摘要

Integration of Ⅲ- nitride materials with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) creates new and exciting opportunities for miniaturizing, reducing power consumption, and improving the performance and functionality of many devices including sensors (chemical, biological, gas and fluid), actuators, RF MEMS and optical arrays. Advances in photo-electrochemical (PEC) micromachining of single crystal SiC [1,2], an excellent substrate for AlN epitaxy, has enabled the development of piezoelectric MEMS from these high quality, single crystal materials. Single crystal SiC-AlN devices are exceptionally robust, can be fabricated into very small structures, and provide exceptional chemical and thermal stability, reproducibility and sensitivity compared to conventional polycrystalline piezoelectric MEMS. In this paper, we present two sensor platforms based on such SiC-AlN MEMS: a) chemical and explosive sensors based on microresonators and b) fluid sensors based on flexural plate wave membrane devices. Design, fabrication and application of these devices for different applications are discussed.