A simple micro pirani vasuum gauge fabricated by bulk micromachining technology

Abstract

In this paper, a very simple micro vacuum pirani gauge made of single crystal silicon is presented. It was fabricated by standard bulk micromachining with only three masks. The high aspect ratio structure of the pirani gauge has large efficient gaseous heat transfer area, thus can increase the sensitivity of the pirani gauge. The dynamic range of the pirani gauge is 2Pa to 400Pa which should be larger if the power of the current source be larger with high sensitivity. And the average sensitivity is 184 K/W/Pa.