Numerical analysis of capacitive pressure micro-sensors

摘要

Pseudo-spectral method is used to numerically model the diaphragm deflection of capacitive pressure micro-sensor under uniform load. The relationship between the capacitance of the micro-sensor and the load is then analyzed after the description of the computational principle. For normal mode micro-sensor, the tensile force on the diaphragm can be ignored and thereby the capacitance increases linearly with the load increase only when the load is so small that the resultant deflection is less than the diaphragm thickness. The linear relationship between the capacitance and the load turns to be nonlinear thereafter and the capacitance rises dramatically with the constant increase of the load. For touch mode micro-sensor, an algorithm to determine the touch radius of the diaphragm and substrate is presented and the curve of capacitance versus load is shown on the numerical results laying a theoretical foundation for micro-sensor design.