Development of Micro Strain Sensor based on Drain Current Change of Strained MOSFET

Many types of tactile sensor have been proposed and developed. They are becoming miniaturized and more precise at present state. Micro tactile sensors of high performance equal to a human being are now desired for robot application, in which skilful and dexterous motion like a human being is necessary. Micromachining is one solution to realize a practical tactile sensor. In usual researches, capacitive, piezoelectric, and piezoresistive types are employed as measurement principle of micromachined sensor. In this paper, the MOSFET is applied and the drain current change of it when applied strain is employed as the measurement principle of tactile sensor. Fabricated sensor based on this principle detects strain with good linearity. The result is compared with conventional piezoresistive strain sensor, which shows the sensitivity of MOSFET strain sensor has good possibility compatible to conventional type sensors.