Wide Range Highly Sensitive Pressure Sensor Based on Heated Micromachined Arch Beam

Miniaturized air-pressure sensing devices has received increasing attention during the past few decades. Pressure sensors have been explored in various potential applications, such as industrial control, healthcare, medical testing, and environmental monitoring [1–2]. Different sensing mechanisms and designs have been used for the detection of air-pressure. Of particular importance are resonant pressure sensors based on tracking the change in resonance frequency of the device with pressure. To improve the pressure sensor sensitivity, various designs have been investigated including carbon nanotubes, microcantilever, and bridge resonators. In a recent study [3], we showed a resonant pressure sensor based on an electrothermally heated clamped-clamped straight beam (cooling effect). We showed that operating the resonator near the buckling point maximizes its sensitivity [3]. In this work, we will focus on the detection of air pressure using an electrothermally heated initially curved beam exhibiting veering among its first two symmetric vibration modes, which offers more continuity in frequency variations, and hence measurements compared to buckled beams. The presented approach shows significant advantages in term of sensitivity and wide pressure range.