Sidewall epitaxial piezoresistor process for in-plane sensing applications

Author

Barlian, A.A. ; Harjee, N. ; Mukundan, V. ; Fung, T.H. ; Park, S.-J. ; Pruitt, B.L.

Author_Institution

Stanford Univ., Stanford

fYear

2008

fDate

13-17 Jan. 2008

Firstpage

331

Lastpage

334

Abstract

We report, a novel, selective epitaxial fabrication method to form piezoresistors on the sidewalls of microstructures for in-plane sensing applications. We have fabricated and characterized cantilevered force sensors with lateral piezoresistors. Their sensitivity was found to be 2-7 times more sensitive than most ion-implanted cantilevers we have made with equivalent dopant concentration. In addition, we have characterized noise and electrical characteristics and the effect of trench dimension on deposition rate.

Keywords

cantilevers; force sensors; microsensors; piezoresistive devices; resistors; cantilevered force sensors; electrical characteristics; in-plane sensing applications; microstructures; selective epitaxial fabrication method; sidewall epitaxial piezoresistor process; trench dimension; Annealing; Epitaxial layers; Etching; Fabrication; Force sensors; Piezoresistance; Resists; Scanning electron microscopy; Semiconductor epitaxial layers; Silicon;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2008. MEMS 2008. IEEE 21st International Conference on

Conference_Location

Tucson, AZ

ISSN

1084-6999

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-1792-6

Electronic_ISBN

1084-6999

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEMSYS.2008.4443660

Filename

4443660