Silicon-on-insulator material for sensors and accelerometers

Using commercially available silicon on insulator (SOI) starting material gives the opportunity for a manufacturable acceleration sensor fabricated using a single wafer process. A focused ion beam (FIB) is used to cut a Si cantilever at an oblique angle to form the gap in the structure. This overall process sequence is simple and for high-value sensors it is not a serious disadvantage to use the serial FIB process to cut the beams. The general approach of using bonded silicon-on-insulator wafers for machining single crystal Si micromechanical structures is simple, flexible and has many possible applications in sensors and MEMS