Micromachined pressure gauge for the vacuum range based on damping of a resonator

Steffen Kurth; Karla Hiller; Norbert Zichner; Jan Mehner; Thomas Iwert; Steffen Biehl; Wolfram Doetzel; Thomas Gessner

doi:10.1117/12.443024

1 October 2001 Micromachined pressure gauge for the vacuum range based on damping of a resonator

Steffen Kurth, Karla Hiller, Norbert Zichner, Jan Mehner, Thomas Iwert, Steffen Biehl, Wolfram Doetzel, Thomas Gessner

Proceedings Volume 4559, MEMS Components and Applications for Industry, Automobiles, Aerospace, and Communication; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.443024
Event: Micromachining and Microfabrication, 2001, San Francisco, CA, United States

Abstract

Vacuum pressure measuring has been a field low permeated by micromachined devices until now. We designed a micromachined resonating system for friction vacuum gauge and tested it with the related electronics. The Silicon resonator is electrostically driven and capacitively sensed. Working at the fundamental resonant frequency (14 kHz), the damping of the oscillation is a measure for the pressure. We use bulk micromaching for the fabrication of the sensor cells. They consist of two fusion bonded silicon layers forming the resonator and two anodically bonded glass layers for caring sensing electrodes. A modified tuning fork design has been used for the resonator. It has a mechanical Q-factor of 33.000 at the low measurement range. The electronic circuit consists of a phase locked loop for driving at resonance and a PI controller to keep a constant vibration magnitude. The sensor has a nearly logarithmic transfer in a vacuum pressure range of 10^-3 mbar ... 100 mbar.

Citation Download Citation

Steffen Kurth, Karla Hiller, Norbert Zichner, Jan Mehner, Thomas Iwert, Steffen Biehl, Wolfram Doetzel, and Thomas Gessner "Micromachined pressure gauge for the vacuum range based on damping of a resonator", Proc. SPIE 4559, MEMS Components and Applications for Industry, Automobiles, Aerospace, and Communication, (1 October 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.443024

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