A novel micro-accelerometer with adjustable sensitivity based on resonant tunnelling diodes

• 来源期刊: 中国物理B（英文版）
• 关键词: micro-accelerometer piezoresistance effect resonant tunnelling diode (RTD) sensitivity
• 年，卷（期）: 2009,（3）
• 页码范围: 1242-1247
• 页数: 6页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Resonant tunnelling diodes (RTDs) have negative differential resistance effect, and the current-voltage charac-teristics change as a function of external stress, which is regarded as meso-piezoresistance effect of RTDs. In this paper, a novel micro-accelerometer based on AlAs/GaAs/Ino.1Gao.9As/GaAs/AlAs RTDs is designed and fabricated to be a four-beam-mass structure, and an RTD-Wheatstone bridge measurement system is established to test the ba-sic properties of this novel accelerometer. According to the experimental results, the sensitivity of the RTD based micro-accelerometer is adjustable within a range of 3 orders when the bias voltage of the sensor changes. The largest sensitivity of this RTD based micro-accelerometer is 560.2025 mV/g which is about 10 times larger than that of silicon based micro piezoresistive accelerometer, while the smallest one is 1.49135 mV/g.