MEMS based low cost piezoresistive microcantilever force sensor and sensor module

In the present work, we report fabrication and characterization of a low-cost MEMS based piezoresistive micro-force sensor with SU-8 tip using laboratory made silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate. To prepare SOI wafer, silicon film (0.8 µm thick) was deposited on an oxidized silicon wafer using RF magnetron sputtering technique. The films were deposited in argon (Ar) ambient without external substrate heating. The material characteristics of the sputtered deposited silicon film and silicon film annealed at different temperatures (400–1050 °C) were studied using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. The residual stress of the films was measured as a function of annealing temperature. The stress of the as-deposited films was observed to be compressive and annealing the film above 1050 °C resulted in a tensile stress. The stress of the film decreased gradually with increase in annealing temperature. The fabricated cantilevers were 130 μm in length, 40 μm wide and 1.0 μm thick. A series of force–displacement curves were obtained using fabricated microcantilever with commercial AFM setup and the data were analyzed to get the spring constant and the sensitivity of the fabricated microcantilever. The measured spring constant and sensitivity of the sensor was 0.1488 N/m and 2.7 mV/N. The microcantilever force sensor was integrated with an electronic module that detects the change in resistance of the sensor with respect to the applied force and displays it on the computer screen.