TY - JOUR
T1 - Design and simulation of mass sensors based on horizontally actuated silicon cantilevers
AU - Sánchez-Fraga, Rodolfo
AU - Ponce-Ponce, Víctor H.
AU - Mendoza-Acevedo, Salvador
AU - Villa-Vargas, Luis A.
AU - Estrada-Vázquez, Horacio
N1 - Funding Information:
This work has been supported by the CONACyT , the FODECyT-CONACyT -Grant 115976 and the Instituto Politécnico Nacional , SIP Project: 20141505 .
PY - 2014/5/1
Y1 - 2014/5/1
N2 - Two designs for a mass sensor based on polysilicon cantilevers for hybrid integration with CMOS circuitry are introduced. The change of deposited mass on the cantilever is measured through the detection of frequency or settling-time shifts in the cantilever oscillation, which is horizontally produced by an interdigitated comb capacitor structure. Interdigitated comb actuators are preferred over parallel plates due to their larger displacement which is not a function of the gap between electrodes. Also, using the interdigitated comb as sensor port, the capacitive change is increased and the nonlinearity before pull-in effect is reduced. Therefore, the signal detection is improved, reducing readout electronics design effort. The preliminary results obtained are validated through finite element analysis and electrical simulations in SPICE. Mass-frequency changes of 3.43 pg/Hz and 6.71 pg/Hz are predicted for these designs with natural frequencies of 11.461 kHz and 8.465 kHz respectively. Also, settling time variations of 1.69 ms/ng and 0.7 ms/ng were obtained.
AB - Two designs for a mass sensor based on polysilicon cantilevers for hybrid integration with CMOS circuitry are introduced. The change of deposited mass on the cantilever is measured through the detection of frequency or settling-time shifts in the cantilever oscillation, which is horizontally produced by an interdigitated comb capacitor structure. Interdigitated comb actuators are preferred over parallel plates due to their larger displacement which is not a function of the gap between electrodes. Also, using the interdigitated comb as sensor port, the capacitive change is increased and the nonlinearity before pull-in effect is reduced. Therefore, the signal detection is improved, reducing readout electronics design effort. The preliminary results obtained are validated through finite element analysis and electrical simulations in SPICE. Mass-frequency changes of 3.43 pg/Hz and 6.71 pg/Hz are predicted for these designs with natural frequencies of 11.461 kHz and 8.465 kHz respectively. Also, settling time variations of 1.69 ms/ng and 0.7 ms/ng were obtained.
KW - Electrostatic actuator
KW - MEMS
KW - Mass sensor
KW - Polysilicon cantilever
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84897103164&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.mee.2014.02.031
DO - 10.1016/j.mee.2014.02.031
M3 - Artículo
SN - 0167-9317
VL - 119
SP - 83
EP - 88
JO - Microelectronic Engineering
JF - Microelectronic Engineering
ER -