Geothermal environmental exposure testing of encapsulant and device materials for harsh environment MEMS sensors

Author

Wodin-Schwartz, S. ; Cheng, J.C. ; Senesky, D.G. ; Hammer, J.E. ; Pisano, A.P.

Author_Institution

Univ. of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

fYear

2012

fDate

Jan. 29 2012-Feb. 2 2012

Firstpage

432

Lastpage

435

Abstract

The development of harsh environment sensors for down hole geothermal well monitoring is needed to both optimize current production wells and to develop more accurate subsurface mapping to reduce the cost of well exploration. Exposure testing of encapsulant and device materials must be conducted within harsh environments to determine material survivability in the well bore environment. Mass change and sputter XPS chemical analysis were conducted on silicon, sapphire, silicon carbide (SiC), and aluminum nitride (AlN) after up to 100 hours of exposure testing in water at its critical point.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; X-ray photoelectron spectra; aluminium compounds; chemical analysis; critical points; elemental semiconductors; geophysical equipment; geotechnical engineering; materials testing; microsensors; sapphire; silicon; silicon compounds; sputter deposition; wide band gap semiconductors; Al₂O₃; AlN; Si; SiC; current production wells optimization; device materials testing; down hole geothermal well monitoring; encapsulant testing; geothermal environmental exposure testing; harsh environment MEMS sensors; mass change; material survivability; sputter XPS chemical analysis; subsurface mapping; water exposure testing; well bore environment; Degradation; Nickel; Silicon; Silicon carbide; Temperature sensors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), 2012 IEEE 25th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Paris

ISSN

1084-6999

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0324-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEMSYS.2012.6170219

Filename

6170219