The Influence of Pressure on the TCF of AlN-Based SAW Pressure Sensor

Abstract

This work illustrates the temperature stability of an AlN-based surface acoustic wave (SAW) pressure sensor working at different pressures. At atmospheric pressure, the temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) in the temperature range of 18 °C to 460 °C is tested to be −35.68 ppm/°C. With increasing pressure from 0 MPa to 2 MPa, the <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> TCF <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> is found as decreased by 0.43 ppm/°C. A finite element method (FEM) has been used to investigate the phenomena of decreasing <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> TCF <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> and it was found that elastic modulus and thermal mismatch are two main factors contributing to the decrease in <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> TCF <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> . At atmospheric pressure, the TCF has been simulated as −17.27 ppm/°C, when only the elastic modulus effect was considered. With the increase in pressure from 0 MPa to 2 MPa, the <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> TCF <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> is reduced only by 0.003 ppm/°C, which is very small than experimental findings as strain increases only with the pressure. After including the thermal mismatch between the films, the TCF of the sensor at atmospheric pressure is simulated as −26.50 ppm/°C. The <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> TCF <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> is decreased by 0.49 ppm/°C with increasing pressure from 0 MPa to 2 MPa, as the strain increases with both pressure and temperature. The sensor’s <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> TCF <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> decreases with pressure because the frequency decreases with temperature but increases with pressure, which means that pressure can cancel part of the frequency drop caused by the same temperature range, so the <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> TCF <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> at high pressure is smaller.

Topics & Concepts