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. 2022 Sep 27;13(10):1608.
doi: 10.3390/mi13101608.

A Miniaturized Piezoelectric MEMS Accelerometer with Polygon Topological Cantilever Structure

Chaoxiang Yang  1 , Bohao Hu  1 , Liangyu Lu  1 , Zekai Wang  1 , Wenjuan Liu  1   2 , Chengliang Sun  1   2
Affiliations

A Miniaturized Piezoelectric MEMS Accelerometer with Polygon Topological Cantilever Structure

Chaoxiang Yang et al. Micromachines (Basel). .

Abstract

This work proposes a miniaturized piezoelectric MEMS accelerometer based on polygonal topology with an area of only 868 × 833 μm2. The device consists of six trapezoidal cantilever beams with shorter fixed sides. Meanwhile, a device with larger fixed sides is also designed for comparison. The theoretical and finite element models are established to analyze the effect of the beam's effective stiffness on the output voltage and natural frequency. As the stiffness of the device decreases, the natural frequency of the device decreases while the output signal increases. The proposed polygonal topology with shorter fixed sides has higher voltage sensitivity than the larger fixed one based on finite element simulations. The piezoelectric accelerometers are fabricated using Cavity-SOI substrates with a core piezoelectric film of aluminum nitride (AlN) of about 928 nm. The fabricated piezoelectric MEMS accelerometers have good linearity (0.99996) at accelerations less than 2 g. The measured natural frequency of the accelerometer with shorter fixed sides is 98 kHz, and the sensitivity, resolution, and minimum detectable signal at 400 Hz are 1.553 mV/g, 1 mg, and 2 mg, respectively. Compared with the traditional trapezoidal cantilever with the same diaphragm area, its output voltage sensitivity is increased by 22.48%.

Keywords: AlN; miniaturized; piezoelectric MEMS accelerometers; polygon topological cantilever.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Three-dimensional view, (b) front view, and (c) cross-sectional view of the designed miniaturized piezoelectric MEMS accelerometer with polygonal topology.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Stress distribution diagrams of (a) Type A and (b) Type B piezoelectric MEMS accelerometers at 400 Hz.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic illustrations of the proposed piezoelectric MEMS accelerometer fabrication flow.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The front view diagram of (a) Type A and (b) Type B using an optical microscope.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Cross-sectional SEM images of the proposed piezoelectric MEMS accelerometer.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Frequency response measurement results using a Polytec MSA-600 LDV.
Figure 7
Figure 7
The diagram of the accelerometer vibration experiment setup.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Frequency response curve formed by single frequency sweeps of the experiment system.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Output voltage vs. acceleration for Type A and Type B piezoelectric MEMS accelerometers to obtain the sensitivity and linearity at 400 Hz.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Minimum detectable signal (MDS) of Type A and Type B piezoelectric MEMS accelerometers at 400 Hz.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Output voltage vs. acceleration for Type A and Type B piezoelectric accelerometers to obtain the resolution at 400 Hz. Sweep step size of excitation acceleration: (a) 1 mg, (b) 0.5 mg.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Output voltage vs. acceleration for Type A and Type B piezoelectric accelerometers to obtain the resolution at 400 Hz. Sweep step size of excitation acceleration: (a) 1 mg, (b) 0.5 mg.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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