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Triaxial MEMS accelerometer with screen printed PZT thick film

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Abstract

Piezoelectric thick films have increasing interest due to the potential high sensitivity and actuation force for MEMS sensors and actuators. The screen printing technique is a promising deposition technique for realizing piezoelectric thick films in the thickness range from 10–100 μm. In this work integration of a screen printed piezoelectric PZT thick film with silicon MEMS technology is shown. A high bandwidth triaxial accelerometer has been designed, fabricated and characterized. The voltage sensitivity is 0.31 mV/g in the vertical direction, 0.062 mV/g in the horizontal direction and the first mode resonance frequency is 11 kHz. A Finite Element Method (FEM) model is used to validate the measured sensitivity and resonance frequency. Good agreement between the model and the measurements is seen.

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Acknowledgements

This research is a collaboration between “The Department of Micro and Nanotechnology” (DTU Nanotech) and the two companies InSensor A/S and Ferroperm Piezoceramics A/S. It is part of the PiMEMS project which is supported by “The Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Micro- and Nanotechnology, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs., Lyngby, Denmark

    Christian C. Hindrichsen, Ninia S. Almind, Simon H. Brodersen & Erik V. Thomsen

  2. InSensor A/S, Kvistgaard, Denmark

    Rasmus Lou-Møller

  3. Ferroperm Piezoceramics A/S, Kvistgaard, Denmark

    Karsten Hansen

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  1. Christian C. Hindrichsen
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  2. Ninia S. Almind
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  3. Simon H. Brodersen
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  4. Rasmus Lou-Møller
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  5. Karsten Hansen
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  6. Erik V. Thomsen
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Correspondence to Christian C. Hindrichsen.

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Hindrichsen, C.C., Almind, N.S., Brodersen, S.H. et al. Triaxial MEMS accelerometer with screen printed PZT thick film. J Electroceram 25, 108–115 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10832-010-9597-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10832-010-9597-4

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