Disclosure of Invention
In view of the shortcomings or drawbacks of the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide an explosion field MEMS piezoresistive pressure sensor.
In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an explosion field MEMS piezoresistive pressure sensor comprising:
the first piezoresistive pressure sensor comprises a first silicon strain film, a plurality of first piezoresistors, a first metal lead and a first glass substrate, wherein the first silicon strain film is a silicon film which is formed by etching the back surface of a first SOI (silicon on insulator) silicon wafer and is provided with a first island and a first cavity on the back surface, the first island is positioned in the first cavity, and the first glass substrate and the back surface of the first silicon wafer are bonded to seal the first cavity; the first piezoresistors and the first metal leads form a Wheatstone bridge and are positioned on the front surface of the first silicon strained film, and meanwhile, the first piezoresistors are positioned on the edge of the first silicon strained film;
the second piezoresistive pressure sensor comprises a second silicon strain film, a plurality of second piezoresistors, a second metal lead and a second glass substrate, wherein the second silicon strain film is a silicon film which is formed by etching the back surface of a second SOI silicon wafer and is provided with a second island and a second cavity on the back surface, and the second island is positioned in the second cavity; the second glass substrate is bonded with the back surface of the second silicon wafer to seal a second cavity; the plurality of second piezoresistors and the second metal lead form a Wheatstone bridge and are positioned on the front surface of the first silicon strained film, and meanwhile, the second piezoresistors are positioned on the inner edge of the second silicon strained film;
the thickness of the first silicon strain film is the same as that of the second silicon strain film, and the area of the first silicon strain film is larger than that of the second silicon strain film; the thickness of the first island is the same as that of the second island, and the cross-sectional area of the first island is larger than that of the second island;
the silicon cap is bonded with the front surface of the first silicon strain film and forms a containing cavity with the first silicon strain film, the first piezoresistors and the first metal lead are located at the bottom of the containing cavity, and at least one through hole is formed in the silicon cap at the top of the containing cavity.
In a preferable scheme, the cavity can filter an explosion field shock wave pressure signal with frequency greater than f, wherein f satisfies formula (1);
in formula (1):
c is the speed of sound, m/s;
n is the number of the through holes, and n is more than or equal to 1;
r is the radius of the through hole, m;
a is the bottom area in the cavity, m2 ;
H1 Is the axial length of the through hole, m;
H2 m is the height from the bottom to the top in the cavity.
Further, the first SOI silicon wafer and the second SOI silicon wafer are of an integrated structure.
Further, the first glass substrate and the second glass substrate are of an integrated structure.
Optionally, the first silicon strained film is circular or rectangular, and the second silicon strained film is circular or rectangular; the first island is a cylinder or a square column, and the second island is a cylinder or a square column.
Further, the plurality of first piezoresistors are distributed in parallel, wherein two piezoresistors are arranged at the edge of the first silicon strain film; the plurality of second piezoresistors are distributed in parallel, wherein two piezoresistors are arranged at the edge of the second silicon strain film.
Optionally, the number of the first piezoresistors is four; the number of the second piezoresistors is four.
Optionally, two through holes are formed in the silicon cap at the top of the cavity, the two through holes are respectively arranged along the outer edge of the first silicon strain film, and the first silicon strain film is located between the two through holes.
The invention also provides a preparation method of the explosion field MEMS piezoresistive pressure sensor. The provided method comprises the following steps:
(1) preparing a plurality of piezoresistors and metal wires on the front surface of the first silicon chip and the front surface of the second silicon chip respectively, and forming a Wheatstone bridge;
(2) photoetching and etching cavities and islands on the back of the first silicon wafer and the back of the second silicon wafer respectively to form silicon strain films;
(3) etching areas corresponding to the cavities on the front surface of the first glass substrate and the front surface of the second glass substrate respectively;
(4) bonding the front surface of the first glass substrate and the back surface of the first silicon wafer to form a first cavity, and bonding the front surface of the second glass substrate and the back surface of the second silicon wafer to form a second cavity;
(5) and etching a through hole on the silicon cap, and bonding the silicon cap with the front surface of the first silicon wafer.
Further, in the step (1), a plurality of piezoresistors and metal wires are prepared by adopting photoetching, etching, ion doping and LPCVD (low pressure chemical vapor deposition) processes, and a Wheatstone bridge is formed.
The pressure sensor comprises two sensitive membranes with different sizes, wherein the smaller silicon strain membrane can be designed into a structure with smaller sensitivity and larger measuring range, has stronger overload capacity and meets the measurement of the pressure peak value of the shock wave; in addition, a silicon cap with a through hole is arranged above the larger silicon strain film, the cap and the corresponding silicon strain film form a cavity, and shock wave pressure signals with high-frequency characteristics can be filtered by reasonably designing the volume of the air hole and the cavity, so that quasi-static pressure signals with low frequency and zero frequency act on the corresponding silicon strain film; and moreover, the back surfaces of the two sensitive membranes are respectively provided with an island, when the pressure exceeds the measuring range, the islands can be contacted with the glass substrate, certain overload resistance is realized, and the first silicon strain membrane with high sensitivity and small measuring range is further protected.
Detailed Description
Unless otherwise indicated, the terms or methods herein are understood or implemented using established methods as recognized by one of ordinary skill in the relevant art.
Referring to the attached drawings, the explosion field MEMS piezoresistive pressure sensor comprises two piezoresistive pressure sensors with different silicon strain film areas and a silicon cap;
the two piezoresistive pressure sensors respectively comprise a silicon strain film (4-3; 4-4), a plurality of piezoresistors 2-2, a metal lead 2-1 and aglass substrate 5, wherein the silicon strain film is a silicon film which is formed by etching the back surface of an SOI (silicon on insulator) silicon wafer and is provided with an island (4-1; 4-2) and a cavity on the back surface, the island is positioned in thecavity 6, the glass substrate is bonded with the back surface of the silicon wafer to seal the cavity, the piezoresistors and the metal lead form a Wheatstone bridge and are positioned on the front surface of the silicon strain film, and when the silicon strain film is pressed, the edge position of the film is stressed maximally, so the piezoresistors (2-2) are positioned on the edge of the silicon strain film and are parallel to the edge to ensure the maximal resistance change rate;
for the sake of clear description of the structural differences of the two piezoresistive pressure sensors, the term "first and second" is used herein before the corresponding feature or structural terms, on the basis of which the two piezoresistive pressure sensors are structurally different:
since the quasi-static pressure applied to the first silicon strained film 4-3 is much smaller than the shock wave pressure applied to the second silicon strained film 4-4, the area of the first silicon strained film is larger than that of the second silicon strained film; meanwhile, the first silicon strained film 4-3 and the second silicon strained film 4-4 have the same thickness for convenience of processing.
The first island 4-1 and the second island 4-2 have overload protection function, when the pressure applied to the silicon strain film is too large, the islands can contact with the glass substrate so as to avoid the excessive deformation of the sensitive membrane, and because the shock wave pressure applied to the second silicon strain film is far greater than the quasi-static pressure applied to the first silicon strain film, the cross section area of the first island 4-1 is larger than that of the second island 4-2 so as to ensure the firmness of the second silicon strain film, and the heights/thicknesses of the first island 4-1 and the second island 4-2 are the same;
the front surface of the first silicon strain film is bonded with a silicon cap 1-1, the silicon cap and the first strain film form a cavity, the first piezoresistors and the metal leads are positioned at the bottom of the cavity, at least one through hole 1-2 is formed in the silicon cap at the top of the cavity, two through holes 1-2 are formed in two sides of the top of the silicon cap and are respectively arranged along the outer edges of two sides of the first silicon strain film 4-3, the first silicon strain film is positioned between the two through holes, shock wave airflow can not directly act on the first silicon strain film, and the first silicon strain film can be protected.
When shock wave pressure acts on the sensor, after a shock wave pressure signal acting on the silicon cap 1-1 passes through the through hole 1-2 and the accommodating cavity 1-3, a high-frequency part with the frequency larger than f is filtered, so that only a low-frequency quasi-static pressure signal acts on the first silicon strain film 4-3, the first silicon strain film 4-3 deforms under the action of pressure, along with the strain of the diaphragm, the resistivity of the piezoresistor 2-2 arranged on the first silicon strain film 4-3 changes, the resistance value changes, and finally the output of the Wheatstone bridge changes; the working principle of the second silicon strain film 4-4 is similar to that of the first silicon strain film 4-3, the shock wave pressure signal directly acts on the second silicon strain film 4-4, and finally the magnitude of the external shock wave pressure can be determined by measuring the output of the Steton bridge;
after the shock wave pressure passes through the through hole 1-2, due to the lumen effect, the shock wave pressure signal with high frequency characteristics is filtered, and the quasi-static pressure signal with low frequency is applied to the first silicon strained membrane 4-3. In the preferred scheme, the volume of the through hole 1-2 and the volume of the accommodating cavity 1-3 are reasonably designed to selectively filter and remove the blast field shock wave pressure signal larger than f, wherein f satisfies the formula (1);
wherein c is the sound velocity, m/s; n is the number of the through holes, and n is more than or equal to 1; r is the radius of the through hole, m; a is the bottom area in the cavity, m2 ;H1 Is the axial length of the through hole, m; h2 M is the height from the bottom to the top in the cavity.
In other schemes, the SOI silicon wafer of the piezoresistive pressure sensor in two of the above schemes is of an integral structure, and the two glass substrates are of an integral structure.
In a specific embodiment, the shape of the silicon strained film and the shape of the island may be selected according to the requirement, and are usually square or circular and cylindrical or square-column.
In a specific scheme, the number of the piezoresistors is multiple, and is generally 1-5.
Example (b):
in the embodiment, the first silicon wafer and the second silicon wafer are integrated silicon wafers, the first glass substrate and the second glass substrate are integrated glass substrates, wherein the SOI silicon wafer uses an N-type (100) crystal face double-sided polishing SOI silicon wafer, the silicon cap uses an N-type (100) crystal face double-sided polishing silicon wafer, and the glass substrate uses BF33 glass;
cleaning an SOI silicon wafer by using HF solution, wherein the SOI silicon wafer consists of an upper silicon layer 2-4, a buriedsilicon dioxide layer 3 and asilicon substrate 4, and the upper silicon layer 2-4 and thesilicon substrate 4 are separated by the buriedsilicon dioxide layer 3;
the number n of the through holes on the silicon cap is 2, and the through holes are round holesThe radius r is 2.5 mu m; the bottom area A in the cavity is 6.25 multiplied by 10-6 m2 Axial length H of through hole1 120 μm, height H in the cavity2 280 μm, and f is 740Hz, and the frequency of the explosion shock wave pressure signal is more than 1kHz, so that the shock wave pressure signal of the high-frequency signal with the frequency more than 740Hz can be filtered.
In the embodiment, all the silicon strain films and the islands are square, the side length of the first silicon strain film is 1750 mu m from 4 to 3, and the thickness of the first silicon strain film is 50 mu m; the side length of the second silicon strain film 4-4 is 1000 mu m, and the thickness is 50 mu m; the side length of the first island 4-1 is 500 μm, and the thickness is 400 μm; the side length of the second island 4-2 is 400 μm, and the thickness is 400 μm;
in the embodiment, the distance between two adjacent edges of the first silicon strained film 4-3 and the second silicon strained film 4-4 is 1400 μm;
referring to fig. 6, the specific preparation method includes the following steps:
(1) preparing a plurality of piezoresistors and metal wires on the front surface of a silicon wafer, and forming a Wheatstone bridge of two piezoresistive sensors;
(1.1) growing a 300nm silicon dioxide layer 2-7 on the upper surface of the silicon upper layer 2-4 by thermal oxidation, photoetching to form a region needing doping, and Etching the silicon dioxide layer 2-7 which is not protected by photoresist by using RIE (Reactive Ion Etching) process, as shown in figure 6 (a);
(1.2) carrying out boron ion light doping to form four piezoresistors 2-2, then carrying out annealing to ensure that the boron ion impurity concentration is uniformly distributed, and removing the silicon dioxide layer 2-7, as shown in fig. 6 (b);
(1.3) depositing silicon nitride 2-3 on the upper surface of the upper silicon layer 2-4 by using an LPCVD (Low Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition) process, and photoetching and etching the silicon nitride to form ohmic contacts, metal leads and pad regions, as shown in fig. 6 (c);
(1.4) photoetching the surface of the silicon nitride layer 2-3 to form an ohmic contact, a metal lead and a pad area, sputtering titanium (Ti) -platinum (Pt) -gold (Au) three-layer metal, and forming an ohmic contact, a metal lead and a pad 2-5 through a stripping process to form a Wheatstone bridge, as shown in figure 6 (d);
(2) photoetching and etching cavities and islands on the back of the silicon wafer:
(2.1) spin-coating aphotoresist 7 on the lower surface of thesilicon substrate 4 and performing photoetching to form a pattern to be etched in the back cavity of the sensor, as shown in fig. 6 (e);
(2.2) Etching the back cavity by using a Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) process to form a first island 4-1, a second island 4-2, a first silicon strain film 4-3 and a second silicon strain film 4-4;
(3) etching the region of the front surface of theBF33 glass sheet 5 corresponding to the first silicon strain film 4-3 to a depth of 4.5 μm, and etching the region of the second silicon strain film 4-4 to a depth of 1 μm;
(4) bonding the front side of aBF33 glass plate 5 with a silicon substrate 2-4 to form avacuum chamber 6 as shown in FIG. 6 (f);
(5) and photoetching and etching the N-type (100) crystal face double-sided polished silicon wafer to form a through hole 1-2 and a cavity 1-3, and bonding the silicon cap 1-1 and the surface area 2-6 of the upper silicon layer 2-4, as shown in fig. 6(g), so as to prepare the explosion field MEMS piezoresistive pressure sensor of the embodiment.
The overload capability of the first silicon strained film (4-3) and the second silicon strained film (4-4) in the sensor of the above embodiment was simulated using the solid mechanics module in the COMSOL finite element software.
As a result, referring to fig. 7, (a) is a relationship between the stress difference of the first silicon strained film 4-3 and the applied pressure, the design range of the first silicon strained film 4-3 in this embodiment is 1MPa, and in the case of overload protection in this embodiment, when the applied pressure is 4MPa, the stress difference of the diaphragm surface is 458MPa and does not reach the rupture stress of the silicon material, and when overload protection is not performed, the stress difference of the diaphragm surface is 953MPa and exceeds the rupture stress of the silicon material; fig. b shows the relationship between the stress difference of the second silicon strained film 4-4 and the applied pressure, the design range of the second silicon strained film 4-4 in this embodiment is 5MPa, and in the case of the overload protection in this embodiment, when the applied pressure is 15MPa, the stress difference on the surface of the diaphragm is 445MPa, which does not reach the fracture stress of the silicon material, and when the overload protection is not performed, the stress difference on the surface of the diaphragm is 937MPa, which exceeds the fracture stress of the silicon material.
Therefore, the overload capacity of the pressure sensor is effectively improved, the overload capacity of the first silicon strain film is 400% FS, and the overload capacity of the second silicon strain film is 300% FS.