Piezoresistive pressure sensing by porous silicon membrane

Author

Pramanik, Chirasree ; Saha, Hiranmay

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. & Telecommun. Eng., Jadavpur Univ., Kolkata, India

Volume

6

Issue

2

fYear

2006

fDate

4/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

301

Lastpage

309

Abstract

In this paper, the piezoresistive pressure-sensing property of porous silicon has been reported. The pressure sensitivity of a porous silicon membrane of 63% porosity and 20-μm thickness has been observed to be about three times more than that of a conventional bulk silicon membrane of the same dimensions. The increased sensitivity is attributed to the improvement in piezoresistance due to quantum confinement in the porous silicon nanostructure. The piezoresistive coefficient of porous silicon is estimated for the first time and is observed to be about 50% larger than that of monocrystalline silicon for a 63% porosity porous silicon membrane. The response time has also been studied and observed to be significantly shorter. Power dissipation of the porous silicon pressure sensor is also much less compared to that of commercial bulk silicon piezoresistive pressure sensors.

Keywords

elemental semiconductors; piezoresistance; piezoresistive devices; porous materials; pressure sensors; silicon; 20 micron; piezoresistance improvement; piezoresistive pressure sensing; porous silicon membrane; porous silicon nanostructure; pressure sensitivity; quantum confinement; Biomembranes; Delay; Fabrication; Mechanical sensors; Micromachining; Piezoresistance; Potential well; Power dissipation; Silicon; Stress; Piezoresistive pressure sensing; porous silicon membrane; quantum confinement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Sensors Journal, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1530-437X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSEN.2006.870171

Filename

1608070