A high sensitivity quartz tuning fork temperature sensor

In this paper, a highly sensitive temperature sensor based on quartz tuning fork resonators is reported. The temperature sensor is configured by ZY (110deg/10deg) Cut quartz crystal wafer based bulk acoustic wave (BAW) tuning fork resonators whose operating frequency is at 31 KHz. The ideal thermo-sensitive ZY cut for quartz tuning fork resonators is analyzed with the theory. The characterization of a flexural mode tuning fork resonator whose inherent frequency sensitivity to temperature changes is reduced is presented. A Finite Element Method (FEM) has been used in the deign process. The specific cut quartz tuning fork is fabricated using photolithography and the etching technology. The temperature sensor is used to measure various temperature in the range -50-140 Degree C. The measurement results show that the tuning fork resonators based temperature sensor exhibits excellent sensitivity and short-term repeatability.