Development of a Modal Analysis Accelerometer based on a Tunneling Displacement Transducer

Patrick R. Scheepe;,

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J. Kurth Reynolds**and Thomas W. Kenny**

* Briiel& K j m Sound and Vibration Measurement A/S, Nzerum, Denmark **

SUMMARY
An accelerometer based on a tunneling displacement transducer is presented. The sensor is fabricated using silicon micromachining techniques for fabrication of the seismic mass, the suspension beams and the tunneling tip and electrodes. The demonstrated accelerometer shows linear response from 0.2 mg to 2 0 g (159 Hz), and shows a 1 kHz bandwidth. The electron tunneling accelerometer can be used in applications where both a high dynamic range and a reasonable bandwidth are required. accelerometer, accelerometer calibration

Mechanical Engineering Dept. Design Division, Stanford University, USA tunneling accelerometers is presented. The presented accelerometer constructions were fabricated in the cleanroom facilities from the Microelectronics Center of the Technical University of Denmark. Design and testing work was carried out at Briiel & Kjzr, in collaboration with Stanford University.

DESIGN
The accelerometer design is based on electron tunneling devices used at Stanford [2] , and at JPL [3] where two types of chips are fabricated. The first contains the tunneling tip and the drive electrode for elfectrostatic feedback, and the second contains a metallized membrane. The two chips are glued together in a ceramic dual-in-line package. The same packaging technique is used for the accelerometer. In our design, the seismic mass is suspended by an array of 44 silicon nitride suspension beams. The two-chip construction is shown schematically in figure 1. The seismic mass and the stiffness of the suspension beams were designed to obtain a relatively high resonance frequency (7-10 kHz). The high resonance frequency gives less risk for oscillation during operation. The relatively low seismic mass (0.2-0.4 mgram) has the advantage that the working range of the accelerometer becomes higher. A given electrostatic force can compensate the force on the seismic mass up to higher accelerations if the mass becomes lower. Since the electrostatic force is proportional to the driveelectrode area (which is almost equal to the area of the seismic mass), a maximum working range is obtained if the seismic mass has the largest possible area. Therefore, this design features a relatively large-area mass but with a thickness which is significantly less than standard wafer thicknesses.

Keywords:

electron

tunneling,

INTRODUCTION
In modal analysis vibration measurements the vibration modes of mechanical constructions are determined. To measure the vibrations, the construction-under-test, e.g. (a part of) an airplane, car, train, ship, bridge, etc., accelerometers are mounted to the object. Since the total number of accelerometers needed can be considerable, a lightweight device is desirable, which favors micromachined structures in silicon. For modal analysis applications, the accelerometers should be able to measure vibrations from m/s2 (1 Hz bandwidth) to 100 m/s2 (100 dB dynamic range), in a frequency range from 0.1 Hz to 1 kHz. In a previous study [l] several micromechanical accelerometers were compared, and it was concluded that electron tunneling accelerometers could be able to provide the necessary dynamic range in combination with a reasonably large bandwidth. In this paper, the design, fabrication, and characterization of micromachined electron

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silicon nitride and the oxide. When KOH etching is started, the silicon is etched from the backside only, since the frontside is still protected by the thermal oxide. When the remaining silicon thickness is twice the desired thickness of the seismic mass, the KOH etching is stopped. The oxide on the frontside is etched in BHF, where the silicon nitride works as masking material. Then KOH etching is continued, and the silicon is now etched from both sides, until the seismic mass is released. Since the silicon nitride suspension are placed under an angle of 45", the beams are undercut during the KOH etch. This process was found to work well. Figure 2 shows an SEM photograph of a seismic mass and the suspension beams.

Figure 1. Schematic drawing of an as5:embled electron tunneling accelerometer.

FABRICATION
The two chips are fabricated using a very simple process sequence, involving three photolithography steps per wafer. The tunneling tip is etched into the first silicon wafer using Reactive Ion Etching (RIE), forming a cavity at the same time. The wafer is then thermally oxidized and LPCVD silicon nitride is deposited. The metallization (tunneling tip and drive electrode) is formed using lift-off. Finally, the wafer is etched through in KOH. The Cr/Pt/Au metallization is not attacked during KOH etching. The produced tunneling tips were usually not sharp. However, this is not a problem for operation of tunneling transducers [Z]. The process sequence of the seismic mass in the second wafer has been specially developed to fabricate a thin seismic mass (50-100 pm), i.e. a small mass (0.2-0.4 mgram) with a relatively large area (1.7 mm'). Since the seismic mass is thinner than the silicon wafer, a special two-sided etching process is used. The wafer is provided with two masking materials: thermal oxide and LPCVD silicon nitride. On the frontside, the seismic mass and suspension beam pattern is etched into the silicon nitride, but not into the oxide. On the backside, a square window is etched into both the

CHARACTERIZATION
Acceleration testing was done on a Briiel & Kjzr 4809 vibration table, and using a 8305 piezoelectric reference accelerometer. The accelerometer signals were monitored by a Briiel & Kjaer 2035 signal analyzer. The feedback circuit for the electron tunneling accelerometer is shown in figure 3. The electronic circuit was made from discrete components, that were soldered on a holder for the dual-in-line package. Although this construction is not a textbook example for accelerometer calibration, it was found to work well up to 1 kHz. Above 1 kHz, the frequency spectrum shows many resonances and antiresonances, that are due to unwanted resonances in the test setup.

Figure 2. SEMphotograph of the seismic mass and the 44 suspension beams.

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Figure 3. Scheme of the electron tunneling accelerometer and the control circuit.
Figure 4 shows the output signal accelerometer #24, excited at 159 Hz with 45 RMS. A third-order high pass filter was used at Hz. The d.c. bias voltage needed to attract seismic mass to the tunneling tip was 310 Volt. of
mg

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frequency (Hz)
Figure 5 The measured frequency response of . accelerometer #24.
the noise spectrum at 50 Hz and its harmonics (50 Hz data removed from figure 6). The acceleration noise measured at 10 Hz corresponds to a displacement error of about 10 milli-A, which is typical of the errors found in tunneling transducers elsewhere [2].

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The measured frequency response of accelerometer #24 is shown in figure 5. Only the measurements up to 1 kHz are shown, since the values above this frequency are not considered reliable, because of resonances in the test setup. An equivalent noise plot is shown in figure 6, that was obtained by dividing the measured noise voltage data by the measured sensitivities. The noise values correspond to the lowest acceleration level that the accelerometer can measure. Due to the packaging method and the placement of the control circuit, interference of power cables causes peaks in
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It was observed that the noise level of the accelerometers shows fluctuations, which we believe are due to contamination of the tunnel electrodes. For force-rebalanced accelerometers, electrode cleanliness problems are expected to cause drift in the noise without affecting the sensitivity, as is seen in the tested devices. Improving the packaging
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Figure 4 The output signal of accelerometer #24, . when excited at 159 Hz at 45 mg RA4S.

Figure 6. The measured equivalent noise level of accelerometer #24.

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Figure Z The output signal of accelerometer #24 as a function of the acceleration, measured at 159 Hz.
method is expected to eliminate the contamination problems. Finally, a linearity test was done by shaking the accelerometer at a single frequency (159 Hz) with increasing amplitude, and measuring the output signal. As can be seen in figure 7, the accelerometer measures linear up to a level of 21 g RMS. Although tests at a higher level could not be done, since the accelerometer package started to give problems at these high vibration levels, the feedback system is expected to be able to control the accelerometer up to 40 g. At the test frequency of 159 Hz, the measured dynamic range is approximately 100 dB, and 106 dB dynamic range is expected. More accelerometers were tested, and show a performance that is comparable to that of accelerometer #24. CONCLUSIONS The test results of an electron tunneling accelerometer show that that this type of sensors can show a high dynamic range and a reasonable bandwidth. The demonstrated accelerometer shows a bandwidth of (at least) 1 kHz, and operates linearly from 0.2 mg to 20 g at 159 Hz. Although the sensitivity of the accelerometers was found to be stable, the noise level was found to drift, which we expect is due to tunnel electrode contamination. We expect that the contamination problem can be solved by improving sample preparation (replace piecewise

sample glueing by waferscale bonding), and by using a better packaging method. In practical applications, the high voltage needed for biasing (typically 200-300 Volt) is a problem. We believe that in a proper redesign, we can lower the operating voltage to less than 20 Volt, among others by scaling down the gap between the seismic mass and the electrostatic drive electrode. The performance of a small series of electron tunneling accelerometers shows that this type of accelerometer can be used in applications where a high dynamic range and a reasonable bandwidth are required. The electron tunneling accelerometer looks promising for modal analysis applications. ACKNOWLEDG Part of this work was performed under the Materials Centre for Microelectronics program and supported by the Danish Agency for Trade and Industry, the Danish Natural Science Research Foundation, and the Danish Technical Science Research Foundation under the Materials Development Program. The Stanford work was supported by The National Science Foundation CAREER Program (ECS9502046), the JPL/Caltech Presidents Fund, and the Terman Fellowship.

[l] T.R. Licht and P.R. Scheeper, Historical perspective of accelerometer technologies, Trans. IEE Japan, vol. 166-E, 1996, pp. 256-267. [2] T.W. Kenny, W.J. Kaiser, H.K. Rockstad, J.K. Reynolds, J.A. Podosek, and E.C. Vote, Widebandwidth electro-mechanical actuators for tunneling displacement tranducers, IEEE. J. MEMS, vol. 3, 1993, pp. 97-104. [3] H.K. Rockstad, T.K. Tang, J.K. Reynolds, T.W. Kenny, W.J. Kaiser, and T.B. Gabrielson, A miniature, high-sensitivity, electron tunneling accelerometer, Sensors and Actuators, vol. A53, 1996, pp. 227-231.

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