Piezoresistive silicon nanowire based nanoelectromechanical system cantilever air flow sensor

Abstract

We present nanoelectromechanical system based cantilever air flow sensor using silicon nanowires (SiNWs). The cantilever is fabricated in the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor compatible process with dimension of 90 μm 20 μm 3 μm. SiNWs with the size of 2 μm × 90 nm × 90 nm (length × width × height) are embedded at the edge of the cantilever fixed end to experience the maximum air flow induced strain. Compared with recently reported air flow sensors, our device shows a better sensitivity of 198 Ω/m/s and a flow sensing range up to 65 m/s. In addition, improvements in terms of linearity, hysteresis, and lower power consumption are reported as well. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.