Electronic Material For Microsensors and Microactuators of MEMs (Microelectric-mechanical system)

Rhidiyan Waroko 0806331935 Departemen Teknik Metalurgi dan Material Fakultas Teknik Universitas Indonesia

Outline
Introduction Application Design Process and Material Selection
Material for Microsensor Material for Microactuator

Material Selection : Case Study Reference

Introduction
Electronic materials are material which used for electronic application, such as Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), due to of their electrical properties. MEMS are small integrated devices or systems that combine electrical and mechanical components. Microsensors and microactuators are vital organs of MEMS, forming the interfaces between controller and environment.

Application
MEMS device applications include : Inkjet-printer cartridges Miniature robots Microengines Microtransmissions Optical scanners Chemical, pressure and flow sensors Ext.

Design Process and Material Selection

Materials selection for engineering design needs a clear understanding of the functional requirements for each individual component and various important criteria/factors need to be considered. For MEMS designers, one of the key jobs for achieving the high level of reliability, low unit cost and optimal function performance of microelectro-mechanical devices is to carefully choose materials from a limited set.

Step involved in material design

Design Process and Material Selection

Performance index is such a criterion in Ashby method, providing a comparison between material candidates for a given design. Three things specify the design of structural elements: The functional requirements, the geometry, and the properties of the material.

Material Selection for Microsensors

The suitability of a microsensor for a particular application is essentially determined by its characteristic performance. Different applications require different sensor performance. Microsensors for pressure sensors Microsensors for resonant application Microsensors for microcantilever sensors

Microsensors for pressure sensors

Diaphragm of radius a and thickness t, which is used to measure pressure in an indirect route: the diaphragm deflects by pressure, and then the deflection can be converted to an electrical signal via sensing the variance of the capacitance.

Microsensors for pressure sensors

The deflection d of the center of the diaphragm caused by DP is:

To maximize the deflection d for measuring higher pressure, so, the maximum stress in the diaphragm is:

Microsensors for pressure sensors

Substitute t from first equation to second equation:

The best material for the diaphragm is that with the largest value of M

Microsensor for Resonant Application

Mechanical resonant elements can oscillate at high frequencies and be used as radio frequency devices. The natural vibration frequency f of a high frequency vibrating element depends strongly upon its material properties as: Therefore, high gives high natural vibration frequency, the best material for this application is the one with the largest value of M.

Microsensors for Microcantilever Sensors

Microcantilever with specific coating, which is used to detect mercury vapor, moisture, or volatile mercaptans by showing the resonance frequency variation. The resonance frequency, f , of an oscillating cantilever can be expressed as: For the case of a rectangular cantilever, m*=0.24mb where mb is the mass of the beam.

Microsensors for Microcantilever Sensors

Assuming that the contribution from variation in the spring constant is small, a mass dependence of the fundamental frequency can be written as:

The mass sensitivity of the structure is given by:

For high mass sensitivity, the best material for a cantilever is that with the largest value of M

Material Selection for Microactuators

Microactuators provide drive and motion for a variety of requirements. In some applications, the actuating elements are expected to store energy, such as microsprings and flywheels of micromotors. Quite a number of microactuators are based on shape-changing mechanism, such as thermal expansion, piezoelectric, shape memory alloy and magnetostrictive.

Rotating Disks for Micromotors and Micropumps

Micromotors and micropumps manage liquid or gas at microlevel. The energy stored in a flywheel of radius R, thickness t and density r is:

Rotating Disks for Micromotors and Micropumps

The best material for high performance flywheels is that with the largest value of the performance index,

Rotating disks for (a) micromotor ; (b) micropump

Compact single stroke actuators (levers)

Consider the following generic problem: a microactuator is required to be capable of providing a prescribed force F, and a prescribed displacement d in a single stroke. The volume, V, of the actuator is to be minimized. The actuator has length L, cross sectional area A and mechanical advantage r. There are constraints both on L and A. The constraint on length a rises because the actuator must achieve displacement d, but has a limited strain, .

Compact single stroke actuators (levers)

So,

To minimize the volume, the product must be maximized, so is the performance index for this problem.

Case Study
Material selection for microelectronic heat sinks
Heat sinks are the most common and cost-effective hardware employed for the thermal management of microelectronic circuits and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices. Heat sinks function by efciently transferring thermal energy (heat) from an object at a relatively high temperature to a second object at a lowert emperature with a much greater heat capacity. This rapid transfer of thermal energy quickly brings the rst object into thermal equilibrium with the second, lowering the temperature of the rst object, fullling the heat sinks rolecas a cooling device.

Material Properties

Material Selection
To prevent electrical coupling and stray capacitance between a microchip and heat sink, the heat sink must be a good insulator, meaning a high resistivity. But at the same time it must also have the highest possible thermal conductivity to drain away heat as fast as possible from the chip. The translation step is summarized as follows:

Material Selection
From the graph shown we nd that Aluminum Nitride (AlN) or Alumina (Al2O3) satises the constraints and our objective to maximize thermal conductivity and resistivity is achieved with these materials.

Material Selection
Thermal stress is the stress that appears in a body when it is heated or cooled but prevented from expanding or contracting. It depends on the expansion coefcient of the material and on its modulus. A development of the theory of expansion leads to the relation:

Material Selection
We can make the following observations based on these equations: i. As temperature of the material used in heat sink increases (T), the value of thermal expansion also decreases. ii. For high values of Youngs Modulus, the value of thermal expansion must be signicant (i.e.neither too high nor too low). iii. Despite satisfying the above mechanical properties, the material should have high electrical resistivity.

Material Selection
From the graph we can conclude that Al, AlN, Al2O3 and to some extent even Cu and Zn alloys can be best possible materials for microelectronic heat sinks.

Material Selection
Thermal contact resistance. Consider a case wherein 2 solid bars are brought into contact as. Suppose bar A is the microchip and bar B is the heat sink. Let the length of bar A be DxA and that of bar B be DxB performing an energy balance on the two materials, we obtain:

Where the quantity (hCA)-1 is called the thermal contact resistance and hC is called the contact coefcient.

Material Selection
Therefore, we must note that there are two principal contributions to the heat transfer at the joint: i. ii. The solid solid conduction at the spots of contact. The conduction through entrapped gases in the void spaces created by the contact.

Material Selection
Designating the contact area by Ac and the void area by Av, the equation for heat transfer can be written as:

From standard values, aluminum is the best possible material to satisfy this requirement. We assume that solid A is silicon based material/substrate

Result of Material Selection

We nd that consistent results are obtained in all the three cases for different mechanical and electrical properties of the heat sink. Hence aluminum based are very promising materials for microelectronic heat sink.

Reference
1. S.M. Spearing. Materials Issues in Microelectro-mechanical System (MEMS). Actamater. 48 (2000) 179-196 2. G. Prashant Reddy, Navneet Gupta.Material selection for microelectronic heat sinks: An application of the Ashby approach. Materials and Design 31 (2010) 113117 3. Jin Qian, Ya-Pu Zhao.Materials selection in mechanical design for microsensors and microactuators. Materials and Design 23 (2002) 619625