Piezoresistive transduction in multilayer polycrystalline silicon resonators

J. D. Cross, B. R. Ilic, M. K. Zalalutdinov, W. Zhou, J. W. Baldwin, B. H. Houston, H. G. Craighead, J. M. Parpia

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

We demonstrate piezoresistive transduction of mechanical motion from out-of-plane flexural micromechanical resonators made from stacked thin films. The resonators are fabricated from two highly doped polycrystalline silicon layers separated by an interlayer dielectric. We examine two interlayer materials: thermal silicon dioxide and stoichiometric silicon nitride. We show that via one-time dielectric breakdown, the film stack functions as a vertical piezoresistor effectively transducing the motion of the resonators. We obtain a gauge factor of ∼5, which is sufficient to detect the resonator motion. The simple film stack constitutes a vertically oriented piezoresistor that is readily integrated with micro- and nanoscale resonators.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number133113
JournalApplied Physics Letters
Volume95
Issue number13
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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