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Fabrication of Microheater and Inter-Digited Electrodes on Silicon Platform for

Low Power Integrated Gas Sensor Applications

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 Journal of Research in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (ISTP-JREEE)

FABRICATION OF MICROHEATER AND INTER- DIGITED

ELECTRODES ON SILICON PLATFORM FOR LOW POWER IN-
TEGRATED GAS SENSOR APPLICATIONS
Mr. Santanu Maity1 , Assistant Professor, ECE, NIT,AP, e-mailID: santanu.ece@nitap.in; Mr. Abhishek Kumar2, Assistant Professor, EEE, NIT,AP,
e-mailID: akeee@ieee.org, Mr. Sahadev Roy3, Assistant Professor, ECE, NIT,AP, e-mailID: sahadevroy@gmail.com, Mr. Vinay Kumar Dwive-
di4, MNNIT, e-mailID: dw.vinay@gmail.com, BalajiTripathi5,Student, ECE, NIT,AP, Ashmit Sharma6, Student, ECE, NIT,AP, Dayasagar Agra-
hari7 Student, ECE, NIT,AP

substrate, and used this array to identify gases such as ammonia,

Abstract
Power consumption and sensing material selection is the most
important issue for gas sensor realization. MEMS based Metal
Oxide Sensors using micro-machining structure can be used for
low power consumption. In this paper we are proposing a novel
coplanar micro heater structure along with two Inter Digited
Electrodes (IDE) for different gas sensing purpose on thin Sili-
con dioxide membrane for an operational temperature of ≤200oC
with <50mW power consumption.
Introduction
methanol, and hydrogen sulfide. Individual heater element with
sensor fabricated using silicon integrated structure and use of
thin film techniques have also been described by Chang et al.
[18]. Inter digitated electrodes (IDEs) for sensing application are
implemented in various sensing devices including surface acous-
tic wave (SAW) sensors, chemical sensors as well as current
MEMS biosensors [19]. Different researchers show that increas-
ing electrode thickness yielded an increase in current and overall
signal with small increases in signal noise. This increase in cur-
rent is thought to be due to increased surface area [20]. Radke et
al. in [18] also optimize another type of IDE for better perfor-
mance. Gas sensors based on solid-state property have been used
by the semiconductor industry for both life safety and process
applications [21].

Battery power consumption for a hand held electronic instrument
is the primary requirement of gas sensor application. Micro elec-
tro mechanical system (MEMS) based technology is very much
applicable for reduction of consumed power. A study on piezore-
sistive Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) cantilever
for a chemical sensitive - mass based sensor has been carried out
to enhance sensor sensitivity by Subhashini et al.[1]. The sensi-
tive region attracts the CO2 molecules.Huge work reported so far
deal with the design of either platinum [1] or polysilicon [2] mi-
croheater particularly applicable in the higher temperature range
(400-700ºC) [3]. MEMS based devices those produced through a
combination of standard CMOS technology and MEMS post-
processing as described in the several literature [4]-[10]. Variety
of heater based devices has been demonstrated such as resistive
temperature sensors [11], resistive heaters [12], thermal actuators
[13], thermoelectric sensors [14] and also conductometric gas
sensors have also been designed and fabricated by several groups
[15]. Micromachining technique is best and established technique
for getting different MEMS structure. Wang et al. [16] con-
structed an array of sensor elements fabricated on silicon mem-
branes, which provided improved thermal isolation of the active
area Using micromachining techniques. Advances in thin film
processing, and micromachining techniques, have made this an
extremely attractive approach which are Ikegami et al. [17] fabri-
cated a uniformly heated array of six elements on an alumina
ISSN: 2321-2667 Volume 2, Issue 4, July 2013
In our study we have taken two identical electrodes with differ-
ent sensing layer for identify different gasses by using single
heater as a result it consume low power. And the heater can pro-
duce more than 350oc at low voltage (1.5v).
Fabrication and result analysis:
Device structure:
The device structure is shown in figure 1 is the single cantilev-
er based structure. Where within one die there are one heater and
one electrode. It is considered the electrode as the Inter Digited
Electrode from which it can measure the gas sensing property.
Silicon substrate of <100> orientation and resistivity is 1-5 ohm-
cm is taken as the platform for making micro machined structure.
The die size of the micro heater is 3mm X 3mm because it re-
duces the power consumption. In figure 2 it is showing fabricated
gas sensing device where yellow portion is electroplated gold
and black portion is Ti/Pt.
6
 Journal of Research in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (ISTP-JREEE)

Figure 3: Top view of micro heater (bad alignment)

It shown in figure 3 is that the zinc oxide sensing layer max-

imally placed on the top of the micro heater but partially on the
(a) IDE. So there is an alignment problem. The deposition was done
by using tensile mask. The alignment problem can be overcome
by using lithography technique where pattern can make on the
top of the electrode by using positive photo resist.

(b)
Figure 1:(a)Top view of micro heater, (b) colour code

Fabrication and discussions:

Sensing layer is the most important part of gas sensor. By chang-
ing sensing different parameters like material properties, thick-
ness of sensing materials, crystal orientation, and also deposition
procedure it is possible to get different sensing result. Here it is
shown the alignment of sensing material as it is needed to deposit
on the electrode. Activation of sensing layer is also one of the Figure 4: Top view of micro heater (better alignment)
important parts of gas sensor fabrication.

Figure 5: Deposited ZnO on SiO2 substrate

But it increases the fabrication steps. As a solution it may be

Figure 2: Top view of micro heater consider tensile mask of Si substrate (2” Si wafer) by using tetra-
methyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) solution which shown in
figure 4. ZnO sensing layer is also very much important for

ISSN: 2321-2667 Volume 2, Issue 4, July 2013 7

 Journal of Research in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (ISTP-JREEE)

sensing application. The FE-SEM image of deposited ZnO is

shown in figure 5.

Fig 8. : Micromachined back surface

New proposed structure:

Fig. 6: fabrication process steps
In the present work it is proposed to fabricate a micro heater
element for low temperature integrated gas sensors. In this pro-
Fig. 6 shows the proposed process flow for fabricating the mi- posal a thin 1 μm Silicon dioxide cantilever is used for housing
croheater die. As the lift off process considered for (Ti/Pt etchant the heater structure and the IDE.
is not friendly) making heater and IDE then adhesion is the vital
issue. So different ratio of Ti/Pt can be deposit where 40nmTi
100nm Pt is good adhesive composite. Selective gold plating of
the contact pads is needed for proper wire bonding shown in fig-
ure 7. Etched out of Si from the back of the Die (micro heater) by
using TMAH is the very good technique to reduce power con-
sumption. Micromachining technique (shown in figure 8) is very
much critical because in a two inch wafer it can fabricated 30
devise, so for separation of all devices scribe line can be used. In
a 25% solution of TMAH at 90oc temperature is the better con-
trolled solution for making MEMS structure the etch rate de-
creases with increasing TMAH concentration.

Figure 9: Modified die for two different types’ gases (top view)

In practical the maximum temperature of around 200 oC with a

uniform distribution over the entire micro heater membrane re-
Fig 7. : Fabrication process steps gion has been achieved with 1.5V excitation.

ISSN: 2321-2667 Volume 2, Issue 4, July 2013 8

 Journal of Research in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (ISTP-JREEE)

[6] US Patent No. 5,345,213

0 1
1 [7] R. Cavicchi, J. Suehle, K. Kreider, M. Gaitan, (June
1995)“Fast temperature programmed sensing for microhot-
Temparature
300 plate gas sensors”, IEEE Electron Devices Letters, Vol. 16,
No.6, pp.286-288
[8] S. Semancik, R. Cavicchi, K. Kredier, J. Suehle, P. Chapara-
Temparature ( c)

la,(June 1995) “Selected area deposition of multiple active

o

200

films for conductometric microsensor arrays”, Transducers

100
0 0
1 2
Applied voltage (Volt)
Figure 10: Temperature distribution of a Single microheater by
applying different voltages
Conclusion
In this paper it is mainly focused on power factor so by using
single heater and also tried to reduce power consumption. A
3mm X 3mm micro heater die with coplanar IDE has been de-
signed and the fabrication process has been initiated to sense two
different types of gases by using single device. By decreasing
the electrode spacing and increasing no of electrodes the effec-
tive electrode area is increased as a result an increase in the sen-
sitivity of the device. This device may further be miniaturized
and modified to achieve even lower power consumption and bet-
ter performance.
References
[1] S. Subhashini, A. Vimala Juliet, Peizoresistive Mems Can-
tilever based Co2 Gas Sensor, International Journal of Com-
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chined hotplates”, Appl. Phys. Lett. Vol. 66, No. 7
[10] 6. F. Dimeo Jr., S. Semancik, R. Cavicchi, J. Suehle, N.
3 Tea, M. Vaudin, J. Kelliher,( 1997) “Silicon microhotplate
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search”, Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 444, pp. 203
[11] F. DiMeo, Jr., R. Cavicchi, S. Semancik, J. Suehle, N. Tea,
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lated gas flow sensor”, Sensors and Materials, 2, pp 17-26
[13] M. Parameswaran, A.M. Robinson, D.L. Blackburn, M.
Gaitan, and J. Geist, (1991)“Micromachined thermal radia-
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tron Device Lett., 12, no. 2, pp 57-59, Feb.
[14] D. Moser, O. Brand, H. Baltes,( 1991) “A CMOS compati-
ble thermally excited silicon oxide beam resonator with
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[15] J. Jaeggi, H. Baltes, and D. Moser, (1992)“Thermoelectric
AC power sensor by CMOS technology”, IEEE Electron
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[16] M. Parameswaran, H.P. Baltes, L.J. Ristic, A.C. Dhaded,
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[17] X. Wang, S. See and P. Carey,( 1992) Proc. Of the 1992
IEEE workshop on sensors , Hilton Head, pp. 23
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ISSN: 2321-2667 Volume 2, Issue 4, July 2013 9

 Journal of Research in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (ISTP-JREEE)

[20] A. V. Mamishev, (2009)"Interdigital Sensors and Transduc- ceived his B.Tech degree in ECE and M.Tech, in Mechatronics
ers," Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 92, pp. 808)845, August from Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, India.
26 He perusing PhD in VLSI from NIT,AP. He has published a
number of scientific papers in National and International Jour-
[21] J. Min and Antje J. Baeumner, (2004)"Characterization and nals. His research interest includes Robotics, Microwave Solid
Optimization of Interdigitated Ultramicroelectrode Arrays State Device and VLSI design.
as Electrochemical Biosensor Transducers," Electroanalysis,
vol. 16, pp. 724)729
[22] S. M. Radke and E. C. Alocilja,( 2004) "Design and fabrica-
tion of a microimpedance biosensor for bacterial detection,"
Sensors Journal, IEEE, vol. 4, pp. 434)440

Biographies
Santanu Maity, obtained his M.Tech in Radiophysics and Elec-
tronics from Calcutta University, Rajabazar Science college and
perusing Ph.D. in Solar photovoltaics from Center of Excellence
for Green Energy and Sensor Systems(CEGESS),kolkata. He
worked on RF MEMS based switch, MEMS based gas sensor,
Crystalline solar cell etc. He has three years on laboratory re-
search experience. Now he is Assistant professor of ECE de-
partment in National Institute of Technology, Arunachal Pradesh.
santanu.ece@nitap.in

Abhishek Kumar received his B.Tech (EEE) degree from

Pondicherry university (Central University, under MHRD, GOI)
in year 2009 and M.Tech degree in Power System Engineering
from NERIST Deemed University (Autonomous Institute, under
MHRD, GOI), Nirjuli, India in the year 2012. He is currently
working as an Assistant Professor with department of Electrical
& Electronics Engineering, National Institute of Technology,
Arunachal Pradesh, India. His areas of intrest are Power Elec-
tronics, Electrical Machine, Power Quality, Power system,
Hybrid Energy Technologies, Distributed Generation
&Renewable Energy. Mr. Kumar is a member of Institute of
Electrical & Electronics Engineer (IEEE) USA, Institute of En-
gineering Technology (IET) UK and SCIEI. akeee@ieee.org

Vinay Kumar Dwivedi is currently pursuing his M.Tech de-

gree in Power Electronics & ASIC design from Motilal Nehru
national institute of technology (MNNIT), Allahabad, U.P., In-
dia and graduated from Uttar Pradesh technical university,
Lucknow, U.P., India in year 2008. He was a Faculty member
with Dr. K. N. Modi institute of engineering & technology,
Ghaziabad, U.P. for about two years and then was with the MIT,
Ghaziabad for about one year. His areas of interest are Power
electronics, Power Quality, Network and Control system. Mr.
Dwivedi is a student member of Institute of Electrical & Elec-
tronics Engineer (IEEE). dw.vinay@gmail.com

Sahadev Roy is currently working as an Assistant Professor in

ECE Department at NIT, Arunachal Pradesh, India. He has more
than 9 years Experience in research and teaching field. He re-

ISSN: 2321-2667 Volume 2, Issue 4, July 2013 10

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