A novel piezoresistive polymer nanocomposite MEMS accelerometer

Abstract

A novel polymer MEMS (micro electro mechanical systems) accelerometer with photo-patternable polymer nanocomposite as a piezoresistor is presented in this work. Polymer MEMS Accelerometer with beam thicknesses of 3.3 µm and embedded nanocomposite piezoresistive layer having a gauge factor of 90 were fabricated. The photosensitive nanocomposite samples were prepared and characterized for analyzing the mechanical and electrical properties and thereby ensuring proper process parameters for incorporating the piezoresistive layer into the polymer MEMS accelerometer. The microfabrication process flow and unit processes followed are extremely low cost with process temperatures below 100 °C. This also opens up a new possibility for easy integration of such polymer MEMS with CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) devices and circuits. The fabricated devices were characterized using laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) and the devices exhibited a resonant frequency of 10.8 kHz and a response sensitivity of 280 nm g−1 at resonance. The main focus of this paper is on the SU-8/CB nanocomposite piezoresistive MEMS accelerometer technology development which covers the material and the fabrication aspects of these devices. CoventorWare FEA analysis performed using the extracted material properties from the experimental characterization which are in close agreement to performance parameters of the fabricated devices is also discussed. The simulated piezoresistive polymer MEMS devices showed an acceleration sensitivity of 126 nm g−1 and 82 ppm of ΔR/R per 1 g of acceleration.