A novel accelerometer based on a silicon thermopile

An accelerometer based on a silicon thermopile in a cantilever beam structure is presented. The principle is that the motion of a cantilever beam, induced by the accelerations of the chip, results in temperature variations. The mathematical model for both the thermal sensitivity and the thermal time response reasonably conformed to the experimental results. It is deduced that the sensitivity can be increased by choosing a smaller gap; the sensitivity can be 1.3% per unit g, which compares with capacitive accelerometers; and the thermal time constant is in the range of 10 to 18 ms, according the theoretical model, which is consistent with the experiments.<>