{"title":"A High-Performance Capacitive Force Sensor for High-Temperature Applications","authors":"Muhannad Ghanam;Peter Woias;Frank Goldschmidtboeing","doi":"10.1109/LSENS.2025.3573146","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"We present a high-range capacitive force sensor with exceptional thermal stability. Building on innovative manufacturing techniques from previous work, a new sensor design has been developed, fabricated, simulated, and tested. The sensor, designed as a standard parallel plate capacitor, is assembled from two microstructured silicon chips using gold–silicon eutectic bonding, which provides high mechanical and thermal stability and also forms a Faraday cage around the measurement electrodes. The force range has been drastically increased compared to earlier versions by the addition of a center post, while still providing a reasonably large base capacitance. Measurements conducted up to 350°C and 1500 N demonstrate the sensor's excellent thermal stability, with a temperature drift of less than −0.0008%/K without load (zero-point drift) and −0.0025% full scale (FS)/K under load at 350°C. The sensor achieved high linearity, with a value of 99.98% at room temperature and 99.3% at elevated temperatures up to 350°C. The sensitivity of the sensor is 3.66 fF/N.","PeriodicalId":13014,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Sensors Letters","volume":"9 6","pages":"1-4"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"IEEE Sensors Letters","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11011932/","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We present a high-range capacitive force sensor with exceptional thermal stability. Building on innovative manufacturing techniques from previous work, a new sensor design has been developed, fabricated, simulated, and tested. The sensor, designed as a standard parallel plate capacitor, is assembled from two microstructured silicon chips using gold–silicon eutectic bonding, which provides high mechanical and thermal stability and also forms a Faraday cage around the measurement electrodes. The force range has been drastically increased compared to earlier versions by the addition of a center post, while still providing a reasonably large base capacitance. Measurements conducted up to 350°C and 1500 N demonstrate the sensor's excellent thermal stability, with a temperature drift of less than −0.0008%/K without load (zero-point drift) and −0.0025% full scale (FS)/K under load at 350°C. The sensor achieved high linearity, with a value of 99.98% at room temperature and 99.3% at elevated temperatures up to 350°C. The sensitivity of the sensor is 3.66 fF/N.