High sensitivity nanostructure incorporated interdigital silicon based capacitive accelerometer

•Incorporation of silicon-based nano-structures on the vertical planes of fingers.•Significant increase in capacitance of nano structured nanostructured device.•High sensitivity to inclination and accelerations.•Around 8% change in the capacitance upon the tilting sensor from 0 to 90 degree 90° angle.•Preliminary model for the capacitance and its dependence on the measurement voltage.

Interdigital structures are realized on silicon substrates with high sensitivity to acceleration. The process employs a combination of anisotropic back-side micromachining with front-side vertical deep reactive ion etching of silicon. The incorporation of silicon-based nano-structures on the vertical planes of fingers leads to a significant increase in the capacitance of the device from 0.45 for simple planes to 40 pF for the nano-structured planes. Such structures show high sensitivity to inclination and accelerations, which could be due to field emission of electrons from nano-metric features. Around 8% change in the capacitance is observed upon a tilting sensor from 0° to 90° angle, which makes it proper for possible use as an earthquake sensor. A preliminary model for the capacitance and its dependence on the measurement voltage is presented.