W3P.

047

FABRICATION OF A PIEZORESISTIVE PRESSURE SENSOR

FOR ENHANCING SENSITIVITY USING SILICON NANOWIRE

J. H. Kim1, K. T. Park1, H. C. Kim2, and K. Chun1

1
SoEE, Seoul National University, Seoul, KOREA
2
SoEE, University of Ulsan, Ulsan, KOREA

ABSTRACT
This paper presents a piezoresistive pressure sensor to
enhance sensitivity using silicon nanowire. According to
published paper, silicon nanowire under 340 nm has good
piezoresistive effect. Silicon nanowire of 140 x 200 nm2
size has seven times more piezoresistive effect than bulk
silicon. This paper proposes the piezoresistive pressure
sensor using the high piezoresistive effect of the silicon
nanowire. The nanowire is fabricated to be connected like a
bridge between the bossed silicon diaphragm and the edge
of the silicon substrate. The fabricated piezoresistive
pressure sensor has high sensitivity of 337.5 mV/V·MPa
and dynamic range of 150 kPa ~ 300 kPa. The pressure
sensor size is less than 1mm2 using diaphragm of 200 x 200
μm2.

KEYWORDS
Silicon nanowire, Piezoresistive, Pressure sensor
Figure 1: Schematic of piezoresistive pressure sensor using
INTRODUCTION silicon nanowires
There are many applications for the MEMS pressure
sensor in automobile, military, biomedicine, and aerospace
areas [1]. The MEMS pressure sensors are categorized into Fig. 1 shows the schematic of the piezoresistive
piezoresistive and capacitive type according to pressure senor using silicon nanowire. The four silicon
measurement way [2]. Piezoresistive type pressure sensors nanowires of high piezoresistive effect are respectively
perceive resistance change and capacitive pressure sensors connected like a bridge between the bossed silicon
sense capacitance variation under the applied pressure. diaphragm and the edge of the silicon substrate. When
Especially, piezoresistive pressure sensors have mainly pressure applies on the diaphragm, these silicon nanowires
been studied and commercialized because of high yield and receive stress to change resistance of the silicon nanowire.
wide dynamic range. However, the piezoresistive pressure The changed resistance perceives using fixed current signal
sensor suffers from the low sensitivity and large size as passed through the nanowire and diaphragm. The
compare with the capacitive pressure sensor. Many of the measurement principle of the pressure sensor is shown in
piezoresistive pressure sensors studies are trying to improve Fig. 2
their low sensitivity using various materials such as high
doped silicon and porous silicon [3]. In this paper, the
piezoresistive pressure sensor with silicon nanowire is
proposed to enhance the sensitivity and decrease the size
due to its high piezoresistive effect.

DESIGN
According to the published paper, silicon nanowire
under width or thickness of 340 nm has good piezoresistive
effect [4]. Particularly, silicon nanowire of 140 x 200 nm2
size has seven times more piezoresistive effect than bulk
Figure 2: Measurement principle of Silicon nanowire pressure
silicon. To enhance the sensitivity and decrease the chip sensor
size, the proposed piezoresistive pressure sensor uses the
silicon nanowires of high piezoresistive effect.

978-1-4244-4193-8/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE 1936 Transducers 2009, Denver, CO, USA, June 21-25, 2009
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 Figure 3: Ansys simulation results (a) Max. stress vs. membrane
To get the high sensitivity, nanowires position and size of size (b) Max. stress vs. membrane thickness (c) Max. stress vs.
the proposed pressure sensor should be determined. To release height
decide structure, we used ANSYS simulation. According to However, to obtain high maximum stress should take
simulation result, the silicon nanowires are located to account of a yield issue. So, considering the stress
receive the maximum stress when pressure applies on the simulation, fabrication safety limit and published
diaphragm. After arrangement of nanowires, structures of piezoresistive effect of nanowire, the proposed
the Fig. 1 are simulated. Fig. 3 shows maximum stress as piezoresistive pressure sensor was designed to have the
function of piezoresistive pressure sensor designs such as nanowire size under 300 x 300 nm2, the diaphragm size of
diaphragm size, membrane thickness and release height. 200 x 200 μm2, the membrane thickness of 20 μm, and the
release height of 12 μm.
Maximum stress (10 pa)

3.0
FABRICATION
The proposed piezoresistive pressure sensor was
10

2.5

2.0 fabricated using N-type (100) silicon wafer. Boron ions of

1.5
1019 Dose/cm3 were implanted on the front of the silicon for
the piezoresistance of the silicon nanowire. This is followed
1.0
by the silicon nitride (SiN) of 200 nm deposition using low
0.5 pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD). For the
0.0
silicon wire pattern and electrical isolation, SiN was
patterned and the silicon substrate was etched by deep
50x50 75x75 100x100125x125 150x150 175x175 200x200
2
reactive ion etching (DRIE). To fabricate metal pad, after
Membrane size (μm )
etching the SiN, 1.2 μm thick Aluminum was deposited
onto the silicon contact. TEOS (Tetra Ethyl Ortho silicate)
(a)
of 200 nm deposited on the silicon sidewalls using TEOS
deposition and etch method. Silicon wires were released
6
using follow TMAH wet etch after DRIE. Backside of
Maximum stress (10 pa)

5 silicon substrate was etched by 363 K TMAH to get

10

diaphragm less than 20 μm thickness. TEOS of front was

4
removed using 49 % HF. Silicon wires were etched by 348
3 K TMAH to make the silicon nanowires under 300 x 300
nm2. Finally, SiN was removed using CF4 gas.
2

14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32

Membrane thickness (μm)

(b)
3.5
Maximum stress (10 pa)
10

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5
4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Release height (μm)

(c)
Figure 4: Illustration of the piezoresistive pressure sensor (a)
Silicon nitride patterning & Silicon dry etch (b) Al metal
deposition and patterning (c) TEOS deposition and etch

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 (d)Silicon dry etch and wet etch to release silicon wire range of 150~300 kPa. And the piezoresistive sensor has
(e)Backside wet etch using TMAH (f) silicon wet etch to get high sensitivity of 337.5 mV/V·MPa.
silicon nanowire & Silicon nitride removal

(a)
Figure 6: Measured voltage as a function of the pressure

(249 mV − 237 mV ) / 237 mV

Sensitivity = = 337.5 mV / V ⋅ kPa
150 kPa

To understand that enhanced sensitivity, we compared

(b)
Figure 5: SEM image (a) piezoresistive pressure sensor using
silicon nanowire (b) fabricated silicon nanowire
Fig. 5 (a) shows that fabricated piezoresistive pressure
sensor using silicon nanowire and Fig.5 (b) shows the
silicon nanowire of 250 x 250 nm2 cross area and 8 μm
length.
the fabricated piezoresistive pressure sensor using silicon
nanowire with piezoresistive sensor using structures of
silicon bridge and bulk silicon. The measurement results are
shown in Fig. 7.
The graph shows that measured result of the three
piezoresistive pressure sensors. Pressure sensor of silicon
bridge has sensitivity of 38.1 mV/V·MPa and bulk silicon
pressure sensor has sensitivity of 8.5 mV/V·MPa.

RESULT
The fabricated piezoresistive pressure sensor was
measured using SUSS pressure sensor measurement system.
Pressure on the diaphragm was applied by air flow nozzle of
the equipment. We measured electrical signal during
increasing by 50 kPa. Applied pressure change the
resistance of silicon nanowires. And two probes of the
measurement equipment are located on separate Al pad.
Across the probes, current of 1 μA flow. Depend on the
changed resistance and fixed current, we get the voltage
change using voltage measurement. Fig. 6 shows the result
of the measured piezoresistive pressure sensor using silicon
nanowires.
As shown in the Fig. 6, the measured range is from 0
to 300 kPa. But the measurement under 150 kPa has
nonlinearity. So the fabricated pressure sensor has dynamic

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 Figure 7: Absolute relative change in resistance as a function of
the pressure
As a result, sensor of the released silicon bridge
structure has 4.5 times more sensitivity than one of the bulk
silicon. And pressure sensor using silicon nanowire has 8.8
times more sensitivity than silicon bridge pressure sensor.
In other words, fabricated piezoresistive pressure sensor
enhances the sensitivity due to released piezoresistors and
silicon nanowire of high piezoresistive effect.

CONCLUSION
The use of the silicon nanowire enables the fabricated
pressure sensor to have the enhanced sensitivity and the
reduced sensor size. For the pressure sensor using the
silicon nanowire of 250x250nm2 cross area, the high
sensitivity of 337.5 mV/V·MPa was obtained. Pressure
sensor of the silicon bridge has sensitivity of 38.1
mV/V·MPa and the bulk silicon pressure of the
conventional flat diaphragm sensor has sensitivity of 8.5
mV/V·MPa.
For further researches, piezoresistive pressure sensor
using the nanowire under 50x50 nm2 size is under
fabricated to be much more sensitivity compare to the
conventional silicon piezoresistive pressure sensor despite
less size than bulk silicon pressure sensor.

REFERENCES:
[1] Y. H. Zhang, C. Yang, Z. H. Zhang, H. W. Lin, L. T.
Liu, T. L. Ren, “A Novel Pressure Microsensor With
30- m-Thick Diaphragm and Meander-Shaped
Piezoresistors Partially Distributed on High-Stress bulk
Silicon Region”, J. Micromech. Susc., vol. 14,
pp.1272-1282,2005.
[2] M. X. Zhou, Q. A. Huang, M. Qin, W. Zhou, “A novel
capacitive pressure sensor based on sandwich
structures”, Journal of microelectromechanical
systems, vol. 14, pp. 1272-1282, 2005.
[3] T. Toriyama, Y. Tanimoto, S. Sugiyama, “Single crystal
silicon nano-wire piezoresistors for mechanical
sensors”, Journal of microelectromechanical systems,
vol. 11, pp. 605-611, 2002.
[4] K. Reck, J. Richter, O. Hansen and E.V. Thomsen,
“Piezoresistive Effect in Top-Sown Fabricated Silicon
nanowires”, Proc. MEMS 2008

CONTACT
* K. Chun, tel: +82-2-880-1811; kchun@mintlab.snu.ac.kr

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