ABSTRACT
MEMS force sensor has undergone a significant change in revenue collection in the past 5years. Due to continuous development in microsystem technologies, the need for smart MEMS sensors has grown significantly. Bulk production, miniaturization, low power consumption, flexibility, and high sensitivity are some of the important factors associated with MEMS force sensor for setting a new benchmark in the MEMS market. In this chapter, the effect of stiffness on sensitivity has been analyzed in a piezoresistive force sensor using a rectangular spade cantilever. For this analysis, four different combinations of substrate-piezoresistor materials are taken into account by considering both flexible and non-flexible materials. The designed sensor is simulated through finite element analysis. Category-wise comparative analysis of silicon-polysilicon, silicon-graphene, PDMS-polysilicon, and PDMS-graphene materials has been evaluated due to high sensitivity. From simulation results, the electrical sensitivity of different combinations has been analyzed as 40.938, 40.006, 56.021, and 58.245mV/µN, respectively. Among different combinations, the electrical sensitivity of silicon-graphene is observed to be the highest in Category 1 whereas PDMS-graphene is the highest in Category 2 for an operating range from 0 to10 µN. The analyzed performance parameters revealed that the designed sensor can be useful for biomedical, healthcare, robotic flies, microbots, and micromanipulation applications.
