Highly sensitive triaxial silicon accelerometer with integrated PZT thin film detectors

This paper reports the first micromachined triaxial single-mass acceleromet er with integrated piezoelectric thin film detectors. In addition, the desi gn has a much higher sensitivity than previously presented approaches and i s significantly smaller. The keystones of the performance are the use of th e highly sensitive PZT material and the deep reactive ion etching (DRIE)-ba sed process flow utilizing silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. The accelerom eter consists of a 1.2 mg seismic mass, supported by four 8 mum thick spoke s. The charge sensitivity in the vertical direction is 22 pC/g and in the p arallel direction 8 pC/g. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserve d.