Pressure Sensor COMSOL

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Capacitive Pressure Sensor
SOLVED WITH COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS 3.5a
pressure_sensor.book Page 1 Monday, December 1, 2008 1:23 PM

C A P A C I T I V E P R E S S U R E S E N S O R | 1
Ca pa c i t i v e Pr e s s ur e S e ns or
Introduction
This example examines the operation of a capacitive MEMS pressure sensor, treating
both 2D and 3D model versions.
The operating principle of a capacitive pressure sensor is to measure the change in
capacitance between two electrodes when a change in pressure displaces one of the
electrodes, located on a thin diaphragm. The diaphragm separates a reference
compartment kept at vacuum pressure and a pressurized compartment; see Figure 1.
Figure 1: One quarter of the pressure sensor (the two vertical cross-sectional planes are
symmetry planes). The vacuum compartment looks like a small ashtray with a thin
diaphragm at its bottom. Between this diaphragm and the fixed base is a very thin
pressurized compartment.
At the bottom of the pressurized compartment is a fixed base (with one electrode),
while the diaphragm (with a counterelectrode) is located at its top. As the pressure
changes, the diaphragm that separates the two compartments is displaced, and the
Vacuum
Dividing diaphragm
Pressurized
Base with
with electrode
compartment
counterelectrode
compartment
change in separation between the two electrodes results in a corresponding change in
the capacitance.
Although the deformation of the sensor is primarily caused by the applied pressure, any
initial stresses in the material also affect the deformation. Therefore, the manufacturing
process and the selected materials directly influence sensor operation. For example, in
some structures the membrane and cavities are engraved onto silicon and sealed with
layers of glass. Because the materials are bonded together at a high temperature,
cooling them down to the sensors normal operating temperature produces
undesirable stresses in the material that affect device performance.
The sensor in this example measures static pressures of a magnitude from zero to
atmospheric pressure. The model first computes the initial stresses from the
manufacturing process; then it accounts for the structures mechanical deformation
resulting from an applied pressure. It finally calculates the sensors capacitance for the
deformed shape: the 2D model calculates the capacitance from a computed electric
field, whereas the 3D model simply integrates infinitesimal capacitance contributions
over the electrode boundary.
The 2D model describes a geometry that differs from that of a true 3D sensor (and of
the 3D model). The deforming diaphragm is rectangular and fixed at all boundaries.
When viewed in 2D, however, a bridge-like structure, fixed only at the two edges,
results. Figure 2 illustrates the models deformed geometry in 2D.
Figure 2: 2D view of a pressure sensor.
Model Definition
MO D E L G E O ME T R Y
The pressure sensor consists of a silicon structure that includes a micrometer-thick
diaphragm situated between two glass layers. Figure 3 shows the geometry and the
dimensions are given in Table 1. In addition, two 1 mm
2
rectangular plates at the
pressurized compartments top (applied potential) and bottom (grounded) form the
electrodes.
TABLE 1: DEVICE COMPONENT DI MENSIONS AND MATERIALS
PROPERTY TOP AND BOTTOM
LAYERS
MIDDLE LAYER VACUUM
COMPARTMENT
PRESSURIZED
COMPARTMENT
Shape Rectangular Rectangle with
engraved cavities
Symmetric
trapezoid
Rectangular
Width/
Length
2.5 mm 2.5 mm
diaphr.: 1.5 mm
top: 1.9 mm
bottom: 1.5 mm
1.5 mm
Figure 3: Materials used in the structural analysis of the capacitive pressure sensor in 3D.
S T R E S S A N D D E F O R MA T I O N
During manufacturing, the sensor is bonded together in a vacuum and at a high
temperature before it is cooled down. Therefore, during this process no external forces
act on the sensors boundaries, but internal stresses appear because the two materials
have different coefficients of thermal expansion. This process also produces a vacuum
in the upper cavity that serves as the reference pressure.
During regular operation, the sensor is fixed to a solid surface, and ambient pressure
pushes on all outer boundaries. The temperature also changes, which produces extra
stresses due to thermal expansion.
For a linear elastic material, the stress-strain relationshiptaking into account initial
stress,
0
, initial strain,
0
, and thermal strain,
th
is
Height 0.5 mm 0.5 mm
diaphr.: 20 m
0.475 mm 5 m
Material Glass, HOYA,
SD-2
Silicon Vacuum Air
TABLE 1: DEVICE COMPONENT DI MENSIONS AND MATERIALS
PROPERTY TOP AND BOTTOM
LAYERS
MIDDLE LAYER VACUUM
COMPARTMENT
PRESSURIZED
COMPARTMENT
Glass
Silicon
Glass
Symmetry planes
where D is the elasticity tensor, and the 6-dimensional vectors and give the normal
and shear values of the stresses and strains.
Initially only thermal expansion is active. It is given by
where
vec
are the coefficients of thermal expansion, T is the ambient temperature,
and T
ref
is the reference temperature. The manufacturing stage produces the initial
stress for normal operation, where further thermal expansion takes place. This model
assumes that the sensor is close to its initial geometry after manufacturing, so that the
initial strain equals zero. Furthermore, you solve the first application mode using the
small deformation assumption but allow large deformations for the second one.
C A P A C I T A N C E
To compute the sensors capacitance, the 2D model solves for the electric field in the
deformed geometry (or frame), which is defined by the Moving Mesh (ALE)
application mode. Using a port boundary condition, the capacitance is obtained from
the energy of the electric field from the equation
where U is the potential difference between the plates (U = 1 V for the port boundary
condition) and W
e
is the electric energy density. The area
d
corresponds to the
narrow air gap in the sensor.
The 3D model uses another method for the capacitance calculation, namely
integrating over the surface of the capacitor according to
D
el
D
th

0
( )
0
+ = =
th
xy
yz
xz
vec
T T
ref
( ) = =
C
2
U
2
------- W
e
d
d
=
C
1
h
---dA
=
where h denotes the local distance across the capacitor and is the permittivity of air.
This calculation rests on the assumption that the lower glass block does not deform
much, so that the local separation only depends on the initial distance and the
diaphragm deformation. In the model this expression is further multiplied by 4 to get
the full capacitance of the model.
Results and Discussion
Figure 4 shows the results from the 2D model after the bonding phase, where bonding
took place at 400 C and the sensor is then cooled down to 22 C. In the image the
x-axis and y-axis have different scales, and the structural deformation is scaled by a
factor 20.
It appears that the membrane slightly pulls toward the larger cavity even though there
are no applied loads. Stresses appear near the boundaries of the different materials and
in the silicon membrane, which is narrower than other parts of the sensor. The
maximum appears at the lower left corner of the smaller cavity.
Figure 4: Initial stresses of the materials in the pressure sensor.
Figure 5 shows the results from the 3D model when the sensor is in operation: it is
exposed to a pressure of one atmosphere at 15 C. The largest stress in the diaphragm
appears near the position where the diaphragm connects the surrounding material.
Figure 6 shows the results from the 2D mode at the same conditions. The figure is
arbitrarily scaled and is focused on the left half of the lower cavity. The diaphragm
deforms toward the vacuum with maximum deformation in the middle. Maximum
stresses appear at the upper corners of the lower cavity where the membrane attaches
to the silicon boundaries.
The streamlines show the electric field in the lower cavity. The lines are vertical
between the two electrodes. Some field lines appear outside of the electrode region,
but the field strength is very small there (dark blue color).
Figure 5: Sensor deformation and von Mises Stress (MPa) when exposed to ambient
pressure.
Figure 6: Sensor deformation, stresses (von Mises Stress in MPa; left colorbar) and electric
field (electric field strength in kV/m; right colorbar) when exposed to ambient pressure.
Figure 7 show the capacitance values computed from the electric field for four
conditions as described in Table 1. Conditions A and B have the same ambient
temperature but a higher bonding temperature. In Condition C all temperature values
are the same so no stresses or deformations arise from thermal effects. For Condition
D, thermal deformation does result from the ambient temperature.
The capacitance for the full sensor modeled in the 3D model is shown in Figure 8. This
capacitance corresponds to condition A in Table 1.
You can also compare the computed capacitance values to those for a plate capacitor
with a plate size of 1 mm times unity and a gap of 5 m when not deformed. The
capacitance for this plate capacitor is C =
0
A/d = 1.77110
9
F; the corresponding
value from the COMSOL Multiphysics model is 1.776076310
9
F computed with
settings for Condition C and zero pressure.
TABLE 1: TEMPERATURE CONDI TI ONS FOR COMPUTI NG THE CAPACITANCE VALUES
TEMPERATURE A B C D
High bonding (C) 400 200 22 22
Low bonding (C) 22 22 22 22
Ambient (C) 15 15 22 -18
Figure 7: Computed capacitance vs. ambient pressure for different temperature conditions
from the 2D model: Condition A, triangles; Condition B, squares; Condition C, +;
Condition D, *.
Figure 8: Capacitance of the sensor as the function of the operating pressure from the 3D
model.
Modeling in COMSOL Multiphysics
In COMSOL Multiphysics you solve the 2D problem using four application modes:
two Plane Strain application modes, one Moving Mesh (ALE) application mode, and
one Electrostatics application mode. The latter two are defined in a frame to allow the
mesh to move.
In the 2D model you solve for the mesh movement and the electric field only in the
small air gap where the ambient pressure is applied to the sensor. The mesh movement
follows the structural deformation on the models parts.
The solution process takes place in four steps:
1 The first Plane Strain application mode represents the sensors fabrication, and it
computes the initial stresses that result from thermal expansion. This is solved with
the static solver.
2 The second Plane Strain application mode solves the deformation and stresses that
result when the sensor is exposed to ambient temperature and pressure. It uses the
initial stresses and deformation from the first Plane Strain application mode. This is
solved with a parametric solver for different values of ambient pressure.
3 Using a parametric solver, you solve the ALE mesh for each ambient pressure.
4 Finally, you solve the electric field for each ambient pressure using a parametric
solver.
You solve 3D problem using only two Solid, Stress-Strain application modes. Similarly,
for the 2D model, you must use a large deformation analysis for the second structural
application mode.
The solution process of the 3D model takes place in two steps, which are the same as
the first two steps for the 2D model, but using the Solid, Stress-Strain application
mode.
The following table contains descriptions and default values for constants that define
the different manufacturing and ambient conditions. If you want to conduct a static
analysis to solve for single solutions, you can define a constant P
ambient
; it is not
needed for the parametric analysis.
CONSTANT VALUE DESCRIPTION
T
bondingH
400
o
C High bonding temperature
T
bondingL
22
o
C Low bonding temperature
T
ambient
15
o
C Ambient temperature
P
ambient
101 kPa Ambient pressure

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COPYRIGHT 2008. All right reserved.

No part of this documentation may be photocopied or reproduced in

pressure_sensor.book Page 1 Monday, December 1, 2008 1:23 PM

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