An Electric Field Microsensor with Metal-Silicon Structure

This paper proposes an electric field microsensor with metal-silicon structure. For the first time, metal materials are used as a mask layer in the fabrication process as well as a structure layer and bonding pads of this electric field microsensor. With less masks used, this fabrication process is simpler than the common process. Moreover, the metal materials can protect the top edge of the structure from undesired etch, thus the device structure quality can be improved. Because of low resistivity of metal materials, this sensor has advantages of small output resistance and high performance. The response characteristics of this electric field microsensor are tested. The experimental results prove that the fabricated devices show good response characteristics. For this sensor, the linearity is 0.10% and the uncertainty is 1.228% at an electrostatic field range of 0-50 kVm(-1).