Design and Simulation of Mems based Piezoelectric

Acoustic sensor
2019 IEEE 4th International Conference on Condition Assessment Techniques in Electrical Systems (CATCON) 978-1-7281-4331-6/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE 10.1109/CATCON47128.2019.CN0061

Veena.S Deepika Vasudha Hegde

Department of Electrical and Department of Electronics and Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering, Communication Engineering, Electronics Engineering,
Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Nitte Meenakshi Institute of
Technology, Technology, Technology,
Bangalore,India Bangalore,India Bangalore,India
veena.s@nmit.ac.in deepika.12@gmail.com vasudha.hegde@nmit.ac.in

Dr.Veda Sandeep Nagaraj Dr.H.L Suresh Dr.Gautham M.A

Department of ECE, Department of Electrical and Department of Electronics and
Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Electronics Engineering, Communication Engineering,
Technology, Sir M Visvesvaraya Institute of Adichunchanagiri Institute of
Bangalore,India Technology, Bangalore,India Technology, Chickmagalur,India
veda.nmit@gmail.com hl_suresh@rediffmail.com gautham.ma@gmail.com

Abstract— A MEMS based acoustic sensor that combines
high sensitivity, wide frequency range and low cost batch
processed miniaturized silicon components to build self
powered systems is presented in this paper. It also throws light
on an effective method to monitor health of a machine which is
by using an piezoelectric Mems microphone. The proposed
Acoustic sensor consists of a sputtered piezoelectric ZnO layer
that transforms the mechanical deflection of a thin-etched-Si
diaphragm into a piezoelectric charge. This ZnO layer is
sandwiched between bottom Al electrode and top Al electrode.
The simulations of the proposed acoustic sensor is carried out
for two designs i) The piezoelectric material being placed at
the 4 corners of the silicon substrate and ii) The piezoelectric
material being placed at centre of the silicon substrate. The
thickness of the layers are chosen so as to withstand the
dynamic sound pressure of 96-106db and it produces
maximum of 8µV/Pa. The simulation is done by Comsol
multiphysics and Coventorware.
Keywords— Acoustic Sensor, piezoelectric, Structural health
monitoring
I. INTRODUCTION
Mechanical energy is one of the most abundantly
available and reliable energy sources in our daily life,
regardless of weather or temperature conditions, in contrast
with solar and thermoelectric energies. At micro scale,
energy harvesting technology based on the piezoelectric
effect have been developed to harvest small scale and
irregular sources of mechanical energy present in our living
environment.
Several researchers have worked on a cantilever structure of
acoustic sensor for energy harvesting. It is found that the
sensitivity of 13mV/Pa is obtained for a cantilever structure
which is composed of Pt/PZT/Pt/SiO2/Si3N4 multimorph of
length 1300 μm and thickness 0.1,0.8,0.1,0.5,1μm[1]. But
in this work, the acoustic sensor uses diaphragm structure
for energy harvesting with an expectation that energy
generated will be more at the centre of diaphragm than in
cantilever.It is observed that a circular diaphragm of
thickness 15µm and radius of 150 µm induced voltage of -
4.5*10-5V [3].
MEMS based acoustic sensor for energy harvesting purpose
is designed by using piezoelectric zinc oxide (ZnO) thin
film on silicon substrate. ZnO is used because of its low
deposition temperature quality, high piezoelectric coupling
co-efficient, also it does not require polling like as PVDF
and PZT. It is noted that a structure composed of
AL/ZnO/Al/SiO2 multimorph layers with thickness of
1,3,1,0.35µm produces an average sensitivity of 50µV rms
/Pa [2]. ZnO has transparent and conductive properties,
which makes it attractive for a variety of scientific and
research applications[4] such as surface acoustic wave
filters, acoustic sensors, gas sensors, ultrasonic transducers
and solar cells etc. ZnO is wide band gap semiconductor
with energy of 3.37 eV[5].
Structural health monitoring is very important as we
know that if a damage is not attended in time, then it may
grow at a faster rate and lead to increase in the vibration
level, reduction in the load carrying capacity and also
deterioration in the performance of the component[6].
The structure of the paper is as follows: In section II the
design aspects of the acoustic sensor using the piezoelectric
material at the center and corners of the silicon substrate is
discussed and followed by the simulation results carried out
by Comsol multiphysics and coventerware is presented in
section III which also includes the comparison of the
simulation results, analytical verification of the two designs
of the acoustic sensor and concluded in the last section.
II. SENSOR DESIGN
A. Basic Sensor structure
MEMS based acoustic sensor for energy harvesting
purpose is designed by using piezoelectric zinc oxide (ZnO)
thin film on silicon substrate. In order to determine the
dimensions for a sensor that yields more sensitivity, a
reference model is designed first. This reference model will
enable to select the proper dimensions for the working model
of the Acoustic sensor. Hence, reference model is designed
by using area of (100*100)μm in size as shown in Figure 1.
The stress is measured diagonally across the device shown in
Figure 2 to decide the dimensions of the piezoelectric
material which is to be placed at the center of the diaphragm
(design 1) and at the four corners of the diaphragm(design 2)
.With this, 32.5*32.5 μm of ZnO is placed at the center of
the diaphragm as shown in Figure 4 and ZnO patches of
(17*30)μm are placed at the corners of the diaphragm as
shown in Figure 5.

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 C. Acoustic Sensor design with the Piezoelectric material
placed at the corners of the diaphragm
In this section, Figure 5 shows the acoustic sensor with the
ZnO being deposited at the four corners of the diaphragm.
The dimensions of the same are tabulated and presented in
Fig. 1. Reference model of Acoustic Sensor
Table II.
Fig. 2. Graph of stress verses arc length

The silicon diaphragm largely controls the frequency

response and lateral stresses in response to sound pressure.
Figure 3 shows the sensor structure which consists of the
oxide layer (SiO2) of 0.3μm thickness which is deposited on
the silicon diaphragm by thermal oxidation method at a
temperature of 850-12000c.On this, a ZnO film of thickness
1μm is deposited using RF magnetron sputtering. The ZnO
layer is sandwiched between the aluminium electrodes of
thickness 0.5μm, which is deposited by magnetron Fig. 5. Model of acoustic sensor when ZnO is deposited at the corners of
sputtering. SI3N4 of thickness 0.3um acting as a seed layer the substrate.
between different materials is deposited by plasma enhanced
chemical vapour deposition at a temperature of 300-4000c.
Finally the silicon substrate is etched from the backside by TABLE II. DIMENSIONS OF LAYERS FOR SENSOR WITH ZNO
DEPOSITED AT THE CORNERS OF SUBSTRATE
using deep reactive ion etching(DRIE) method. The silicon
diaphragm thickness is chosen such that it gives support to Layers Size(µm)
the structure and provides a frequency response and lateral Silicon substrate 100*100
stresses for the sound pressure. The thickness of 10μm is Oxide 17*30
selected for diaphragm to withstand the dynamic sound Aluminium 17*30
pressure level of range 96-106db. Si3N4 17*30
ZnO 17*30
DRIE 90*90

III. SIMULATION RESULTS

Fig. 3. Model of acoustic sensor
B. Acoustic Sensor design with the Piezoelectric material
placed at the center of the diaphragm
In this section, structure of an acoustic sensor with the ZnO
material placed at the center of the diaphragm is shown in
Figure 4. The dimensions of the same are tabulated and
presented in Table I.
Fig. 4. Model of acoustic sensor when ZnO is deposited at the center.
MEMS acoustic sensors are simulated for two designs as
discussed above ie the piezoelectric material (ZnO) being
placed at the centre of the diaphragm and the other with Zno
being placed at the corners. Both sensor structures will
convert the acoustic pressure to voltage. Section A displays
the simulation results obtained from COMSOL Multiphysics
and Section B exhibits the results obtained using
Coventorware tool.
A. Simulation by COMSOL Multiphysics
The deformation and voltages are determined by simulating
the acoustic sensor at required conditions.
i. Piezoelectric material placed at the center of the
diaphragm
Figure 6 shows the simulation results of the potential
obtained from the sensor when a pressure is applied to the
diaphragm and Figure 7 shows the simulation results of the
displacement of the diaphragm of the acoustic sensor when
pressure is applied. The simulations are carried out using
COMSOL Multiphysics tool.

TABLE I. DIFFERENT DIMENSION OF MASK LAYERS FOR SENSOR

WITHZNO DEPOSITED AT CENTRE OF SUBSTRATE

Layers Size(µm)
Silicon substrate 100*100
Oxide 32.5*32.5
Aluminium 32.5*32.5
Si3N4 32.5*2.5
ZnO 32.5*32.5
DRIE 90*90 Fig. 6. Potential (μV): acoustic sensor with ZnO at the centre in Comsol

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Fig. 7. Displacement (μm):acoustic sensor with ZnO at the centre in
Comsol Fig. 11. Potential: when ZnO is deposited at centre in Coventorware

ii. Piezoelectric material placed at the Corners of the ii. Piezoelectric material placed at the Corners of the
diaphragm diaphragm

Figure 8 shows the simulation results of the displacement of
the diaphragm when pressure is applied to the acoustic
sensor and Figure 9 exhibits the potential obtained from the
acoustic sensor when pressure is applied to its diaphragm.
The simulations are carried out using COMSOL
Multiphysics tool.
The deformation of the diaphragm of an acoustic sensor
wherein the patches of ZnO are placed at the corners of the
substrate is as shown in Figure 12. Figure 13 shows the
simulation results of the same acoustic sensor in which the
potential is measured on application of some pressure to its
diaphragm. The simulations are carried out using
Coventerware tool.

Fig. 8. Displacement (μm):acoustic sensor with ZnO at the corners in

Comsol

Fig. 12. Displacement (μm):acoustic sensor with ZnO at the corners in

Coventorware

Fig. 9. Potential (μV): acoustic sensor with ZnO at the centre in Comsol

B. Simulation by Coventorware
i. Piezoelectric material placed at the center of the
diaphragm.
Figure 10 shows the simulation results of the displacement
of the diaphragm when pressure is applied to the acoustic
sensor and Figure 11 exhibits the potential obtained from
the acoustic sensor when pressure is applied to its
diaphragm. The simulations are carried out using
Coventerware tool.
Fig. 13. Potential: acoustic sensor with ZnO at the corners in
Coventorware
C. Analytical Calculation
The physics used here to carry out this work is structural
mechanics in specific solid Mechanics and Piezoelectric
Devices (PZD).The Piezoelectric Devices (PZD) physics
combines Solid Mechanics and Electrostatics for modelling
of piezoelectric devices. Charge density in the absence of
external electric field is given by

POTENTIAL, V=(D*A)/C (1)

Where C= (ε0 εrA)/d (2)
D= d33*σ (3)
Where, V=Electric potential(potential)
A=Area of piezoelectric material
D=Charge density, C= Capacitance
d= Thickness of piezoelectric material
Fig. 10. Displacement: when ZnO is deposited at centre in Coventorware . ε0, εr = Electric constants , σ = Stress
d33= Piezoelectric coefficient

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D. Comparision of Potential obtained in comsol, IV. CONCLUSION
coventorware and analytically calculation. In this work, MEMS technology based acoustic sensor
Table III brings out the comparison between the values of with piezoelectric material ZnO is designed and simulated
voltages obtained when the sensor structure with the ZnO using Comsol Multiphysics and Coventorware.
placed at the four corners of the diaphragm is simulated The sensitivity of the device obtained when the the
using COMSOL and Coventerware tools and verified piezo material is placed at the corners of the diaphragm is
analytically from the equation 1 shown in the previous 3.17 µV in Comsol and 3.8 µV in Coventorware . When the
section. piezo material is placed at the center of the diaphragm, the
sensitivity is observed to be 2.026 µV in comsol and 8 µV in
coventerware. All the results are verified by using analytical
TABLE III. COMPARISON OF POTENTIAL OBTAINED method.
WHEN PIEZO MATERIAL IS PLACED AT THE CORNERS OF
THE DIAPHRAGM It is observed that the Potential generated will be higher
Pressure Analytical Comsol Coventorware for a model which has piezoelectric patch at the centre as
(Pascal) Values(µV) (µV) (µV) compared to the MEMS based acoustic sensor which has
1 3.88 3.1745 3.8 piezoelectric patch at the corners. This work concludes that
2 7.766 6.3489 7.6
even though the Potential generated will be higher in the
device which has piezoelectric patch at the centre, drawing
3 11.655 9.5248 11 the electrodes out is complicated. Also it overlaps with the
4 15.53 12.698 15 non stress region of the diaphragm which negates the charges
developed.
5 19.41 15.872 19
6 23.30 19.048 23
The results presented in this paper is a part of a work
which intends to find out a method to increase the sensitivity
7 27.183 22.223 27 of the sensor. It is proposed that the sensitivity can be
8 31.06 25.396 31 increased by connecting the ZnO corner patches in series.
Hence it is concluded to fabricate the model with the patches
9 34.95 28.574 34 at the four corners. The same will be used in an array fashion
for Monitoring health of the machine.
Comparison between the values of voltages obtained when
the sensor structure with the ZnO placed at the center of the
diaphragm is simulated using COMSOL and Coventerware ACKNOWLEDGMENT
tools are tabulated in Table IV and verified analytically from THE AUTHORS THANK NITTE MEENAKSHI INSTITUTE OF
the equation 1 shown in the previous section. TECHNOLOGY FOR THE CONTINUOUS SUPPORT AND
ENCOURAGEMENT.
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