Omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum type triaxial micromechanical accelerometer and processing method thereof
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical field of detecting acceleration attitude parameters of a motion carrier by utilizing the fact that an omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum swings under the action of linear acceleration, in particular to an omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum triaxial micromechanical accelerometer and a processing method thereof, and belongs to the field of inertial measurement.
Background
Due to the application requirements of carrier attitude measurement in various fields of civil vehicles, railway construction, industrial production, bridge construction, seismic research, earth mapping, earth mine exploration, marine investigation, satellite communication, robot engineering and the like, in recent years, the organic combination of sensor technology and emerging scientific technology will lead an attitude sensor to develop towards microminiature, comprehensive and intelligent directions. The Micro inertial sensor manufactured by Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) technology has the advantages of mass production, low cost, small volume, low power consumption and the like, and is an ideal product of the Micro inertial sensor with medium and low precision in the future. The accelerometer is a core inertial sensor for measuring and controlling the motion attitude of the carrier.
The most common of accelerometers is a pendulum acceleration sensor. The swing type inclination angle sensor commonly used at present comprises three types of liquid swing type, solid swing type and heat flow type. The solid pendulum type inclination sensor has the advantages of complex structure, high cost, large movement amplitude of the solid pendulum and difficult bearing of high overload or impact. The main problem of the liquid pendulum type inclination sensor is that the liquid pendulum type inclination sensor has a plurality of structural components, long response time and large performance change along with temperature. The heat flow type accelerometer has the characteristics of small sensitive mass, simple structure, high overload bearing, short response time, good temperature performance, low cost and the like, and can be applied in severe environments. Currently, the requirements of the market on the micro accelerometer for the capability of adapting to severe and harsh environments are higher and higher, so that in the micro accelerometer, the micro mechanical (MEMS) heat flow acceleration is unique in the MEMS sensor due to the ultra-high impact resistance and the ultra-low manufacturing cost, and cannot be compared with other MEMS sensors.
The working principle of the micro-mechanical (MEMS) heat flow accelerometer is that a resistance heater is arranged in a closed cavity, parallel detection thermistors which are symmetrically distributed are arranged around the resistance heater, the heater is electrified and heated to form a heat source to emit heat flow to the periphery, and the influence on the thermistors is consistent because of the symmetrical distribution of temperature fields. When external wired acceleration is input, the flowing direction of hot air flow is the same as the acceleration direction, and the hot air flow changes in the direction of the input acceleration, so that the temperature fields of the hot air flow are asymmetrically distributed, the temperature changes of two adjacent detection thermistors in the same direction are opposite, and the two detection thermistors generate temperature differences. The detection of acceleration can be achieved by detecting the temperature difference through a wheatstone bridge. In the Chinese patent, the micro mechanical heat flow accelerometer in the micro silicon bridge type heat convection acceleration sensor (patent application number 02116842.3) uses a heater to generate heat flow to move under the acceleration action of an input line, so that an asymmetric temperature field is generated, and the asymmetric distribution of the temperature field is detected by arranging a symmetric thermistor. The asymmetric temperature field gradient caused by the deflection of the airflow is small due to the small speed of the airflow, so that the unbalanced voltage output by the Wheatstone bridge formed by the thermistor is small, and the sensitivity of the sensor is low. In the prior art, although the sensitivity can be improved by increasing the power of the heater, the sensitivity is limited by the power consumption, and the sensitivity is not changed or improved substantially, so that the bottleneck of the practical use is difficult to break.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention aims to provide an omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum type triaxial micromechanical accelerometer, which aims to solve the technical problems in the prior art.
In order to achieve the above purpose, the present invention adopts the following technical scheme:
the invention provides an omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum triaxial micromechanical accelerometer, which is characterized by comprising an upper sensitive layer, a lower sensitive layer and a cover plate, wherein,
The central position of the upper sensitive layer is provided with an omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum heater, the upper surface of the lower sensitive layer is provided with four thermistors, and the upper sensitive layer and the lower sensitive layer are bonded together to form a sensitive layer;
Defining the length and width directions of the accelerometer as X, Y directions respectively, and the height direction of the accelerometer as Z direction; the thermistor is placed in the X direction and the Y direction in an orthogonal distribution by taking the omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum heater as a center; the four thermistors are arranged in a pairwise manner and are used for detecting the acceleration of the XYZ three axes;
the omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum heater adopts a wind-fire wheel type sensitive structure, and comprises a central wheel hub with a circular mass block at the center thereof, and is suspended at the central position of a sensitive layer through six completely symmetrical semicircular supporting beams, wherein a circular middle heating cavity is arranged below the central wheel hub;
The electrifying modes of the heater and the thermistor are constant current;
The cover plate is etched with a groove and is connected with the upper surface of the upper sensitive layer in a sealing way;
the cover plate and the lower sensitive layer isolate the gas medium of the middle heating cavity and the middle detecting cavity from the outside to form a sealed working system, and the heights of the middle heating cavity and the middle detecting cavity and the depth of the groove in the cover plate are equal to or more than 300 mu m and less than or equal to 1000 mu m.
As a further technical scheme, the depth of the groove of the cover plate is 2/3 of the height of the cover plate.
As a further technical solution, the height of the heater and the thermistor is 100nm to 1000nm.
As a further technical scheme, the length of the thermistor is 1/6 to 1/5 of the width of the whole sensitive layer.
As a further technical solution, the heater and the thermistor are composed of a metal layer composed of a chromium adhesion layer and a platinum layer.
A method for processing an omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum type triaxial micromechanical accelerometer comprises the following specific technological processes:
thermally oxidizing a silicon dioxide film with the thickness of 0.5 mu m on an N-type (100) monocrystalline silicon wafer;
photoetching a silicon dioxide film to form a thermistor structure pattern;
Sequentially sputtering a metal layer consisting of a chromium adhesion layer and a platinum layer on the photoresist and the silicon dioxide by using a magnetron sputtering process;
Stripping the metal layer except the thermistor structure pattern by adopting an ultrasonic stripping process to form a thermistor structure;
Etching a part of silicon dioxide by adopting photoetching and wet etching processes;
step six, adopting a silicon etching process to etch and process to form a groove with the depth of 300 mu m, so that the thermistor is suspended and fixed on the lower sensitive layer through the silicon dioxide film, and finishing the processing of the lower sensitive layer;
thermally oxidizing a silicon dioxide film with the thickness of 0.5 mu m on another N-type (100) monocrystalline silicon wafer;
Step eight, photoetching a silicon dioxide film to form an omnibearing vibrator heater structure pattern;
step nine, sputtering a metal layer consisting of a chromium adhesion layer and a platinum layer on the photoresist and the silicon dioxide in sequence by using a magnetron sputtering process;
step ten, stripping the metal layer outside the structural pattern of the omnibearing vibrator heater by adopting an ultrasonic stripping process to form the omnibearing vibrator heater structure;
Step eleven, adopting photoetching and wet etching processes to etch away a part of silicon dioxide;
A step twelve of etching thoroughly by adopting a silicon etching process to form an intermediate heating cavity, so that the omnibearing vibrator heater is suspended and fixed on the upper sensitive layer through a silicon dioxide film to finish the processing of the upper sensitive layer;
bonding the lower sensitive layer and the upper sensitive layer through a bonding process;
and fourteen, bonding the cover plate and the upper sensitive layer through a bonding process, so that the upper surface of the sensitive layer is positioned in the closed cavity, and processing of the sensitive element is completed.
By adopting the technical scheme, the invention has the following beneficial effects:
1. the omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum type triaxial micro mechanical accelerometer inherits the advantages of the MEMS heat flow accelerometer, has small volume and light weight, and is easy to be intelligentized and integrated.
2. The sensitive structure of the accelerometer is an omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum heater. The omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum sensitive structure can swing up and down along a Z axis vertical to the plane of the sensitive layer, has the freedom degree (swing) of inertia force on any azimuth angle on the XOY plane of the sensitive layer, and can sense the input acceleration on three axes. The omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum heater is suspended at the central position of the sensitive layer through six completely symmetrical semicircular supporting beams to realize triaxial measurement of acceleration, and has wide measurement range, high sensitivity and high response speed.
3. The omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum adopts a wind-fire wheel type sensitive structure, the central wheel is a mass block and also a heater, and the wind-fire wheel type sensitive structure adopts a sensitive structure central support, so that the structural stress is small.
4. The accelerometer adopts a wind-fire wheel type sensitive structure, has flexible structure and can lead a heat source with high temperature gradient to vibrate omnidirectionally, thereby forming large temperature gradient at a thermistor and realizing large sensitivity output. .5. The structure and the processing technology are very simple, the cost is extremely low, the reliability is high, and the vibration and impact resistance is excellent.
Drawings
In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the following description will briefly explain the drawings needed in the embodiments or the prior art, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are some embodiments of the present invention and that other drawings can be obtained according to these drawings without inventive effort for a person skilled in the art.
FIG. 1 is a schematic three-dimensional structure of an accelerometer according to an embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a three-dimensional bilayer structure of a sensitive layer according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 3 is a schematic three-dimensional structure of a cover plate according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 4 is a top view of an accelerometer provided by an embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 5 is a top view of a lower sensitive layer provided by an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view taken along A-A of FIG. 4;
FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of the operation of the present invention;
FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of an output circuit according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 9 is a flow chart of a preparation process of the omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum triaxial micromechanical accelerometer provided by the embodiment of the invention;
The icons are 1-upper sensitive layer, 2-lower sensitive layer, 3-electrode, 4-middle heating cavity, 5-middle detecting cavity, 6-cover plate, 7-groove, 8-omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum heater, 9-thermistor, 10-thermistor, 11-thermistor and 12-thermistor.
Detailed Description
The following description of the embodiments of the present invention will be made apparent and fully in view of the accompanying drawings, in which some, but not all embodiments of the invention are shown. All other embodiments, which can be made by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the invention without making any inventive effort, are intended to be within the scope of the invention.
In the description of the present invention, it should be noted that the directions or positional relationships indicated by the terms "center", "upper", "lower", "left", "right", "vertical", "horizontal", "inner", "outer", etc. are based on the directions or positional relationships shown in the drawings, are merely for convenience of describing the present invention and simplifying the description, and do not indicate or imply that the devices or elements referred to must have a specific orientation, be configured and operated in a specific orientation, and thus should not be construed as limiting the present invention. Furthermore, the terms "first," "second," and "third" are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance.
In the description of the present invention, unless explicitly stated or limited otherwise, the terms "mounted," "connected," and "connected" are to be construed broadly, and may be, for example, fixedly connected, detachably connected, or integrally connected, mechanically connected, electrically connected, directly connected, indirectly connected via an intervening medium, or in communication between two elements. The specific meaning of the above terms in the present invention can be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art according to the specific circumstances.
The following describes specific embodiments of the present invention in detail with reference to the drawings. It should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating and illustrating the invention, are not intended to limit the invention.
Referring to fig. 1-6, the embodiment provides an omnidirectional dynamic heat source pendulum triaxial micromechanical accelerometer, which comprises an upper sensitive layer 1, a lower sensitive layer 2 and a cover plate 6, wherein,
The central position of the upper sensitive layer 1 is provided with an omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum heater 8, the upper surface of the lower sensitive layer 2 is provided with four thermistors, and the upper sensitive layer and the lower sensitive layer are bonded together to form a sensitive layer;
defining the length and width directions of the accelerometer as X, Y directions respectively, and the height direction of the sensitive layer as Z direction;
the omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum heater 8 is suspended at the central position of the upper sensitive layer 1 through six completely symmetrical semicircular spokes, and a circular middle heating cavity 4 is arranged below the omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum heater, wherein the heater 8 can swing along a Z axis vertical to the sensitive layer and can also swing along any azimuth angle in an XOY plane where the upper sensitive layer 1 is positioned;
The four thermistors are arranged pairwise, the thermistor 9 and the thermistor 10 are symmetrically arranged in the left-right direction perpendicular to the X axis, and the thermistor 11 and the thermistor 12 are symmetrically arranged in the up-down direction perpendicular to the Y axis;
The electrifying modes of the heater and the thermistor are constant current;
The cover plate 6 is etched with a groove 7 and is connected with the upper surface of the upper sensitive layer 1 in a sealing way.
As a further technical solution, in this embodiment, as shown in fig. 7 and 8, a constant current is supplied to the resistive omnidirectional dynamic heat source pendulum heater 8, the resistive heater is energized to generate joule heat, heat is released to the surrounding gas, heat diffusion is performed, and heat flow is formed around the omnidirectional dynamic heat source pendulum heater. Four thermistors T x1 (thermistor 9) and T x2 (thermistor 10) or T x3 (thermistor 11) and T x4 (thermistor 12) with the same resistance value form two bridge arms of a Wheatstone bridge and participate in deflection of sensitive air flow. When linear acceleration along the X axis or the Y axis is input, the dynamic heat source pendulum moves along the same direction as the acceleration direction under the action of the acceleration, so that asymmetric distribution of hot air flow is caused. The temperature changes of the two opposite thermistors T x1 (thermistor 9) and T x2 (thermistor 10) or T y1 (thermistor 11) and T y2 (thermistor 12) in the same direction are opposite, the temperature of the thermistor biased by the dynamic heat source is higher than that of the thermistor parallel to the dynamic heat source, and the two opposite thermistors generate temperature differences. The opposite two leg resistances T x1 and T x2 (thermistor 9 and thermistor 10) or T y1 and T y2 (thermistor 11 and thermistor 12) are used as the two legs of the hui ston bridge, and the temperature difference caused by the input linear acceleration is converted into a change in the leg resistance, thereby causing a bridge unbalanced voltage V X or V Y proportional to the input acceleration. Linear acceleration in the X-axis or Y-axis can be calculated from the output voltage V X or V Y, thereby sensing acceleration in the X-or Y-direction.
When a linear acceleration is input in the direction perpendicular to the Z axis, the omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum moves along the same direction as the acceleration under the action of the acceleration. The heat flow emitted by the omnibearing heat source pendulum heater is offset along the Z axis, and when the acceleration points to the thermistors along the Z axis for input, the heat source pendulum heater is close to the four thermistors, and the resistance values of the four thermistors are increased. The sum of voltages across the four thermistors, V Z, increases. When acceleration is input along the Z axis away from the thermistor. The dynamic heat source pendulum heater is far away from the four thermistors, the resistance of the four thermistors is reduced, and the sum V Z of voltages at two ends of the four thermistors is reduced. Therefore, the acceleration in the Z-axis direction can be sensed by detecting the magnitude of the acceleration by the magnitude of V Z and detecting the direction of the acceleration by increasing or decreasing the V Z.
In the embodiment, as a further technical scheme, the cover plate 6 and the lower sensitive layer 2 isolate the gas medium of the middle heating cavity 4 and the middle detecting cavity 5 from the outside to form a sealed working system, the heights of the middle heating cavity 4 and the middle detecting cavity 5 and the depth of the groove 7 in the upper sealing layer are equal to or less than 300 mu m and equal to or less than 1000 mu m, the total cavity height in the embodiment is of the order of hundred mu m, and natural convection movement of gas flow in the cavity can be effectively inhibited.
In this embodiment, as a further technical solution, the depth of the groove 7 is 2/3 of the height of the cover plate 6.
In this embodiment, as a further technical solution, the space for gas flow is increased to increase the depth of the cover plate groove, and the heights of the heater of the upper sensitive layer and the thermistor of the surface of the lower sensitive layer are 100nm to 1000nm.
In this embodiment, as a further technical scheme, in order to form a film resistor with small resistance change along with temperature, the length of the thermistor is 1/6 to 1/5 of the width of the whole sensitive layer.
In this embodiment, as a further technical solution, the heater and the thermistor are both composed of a metal layer composed of a chromium adhesion layer and a platinum layer.
Referring to fig. 9, the specific process flow of the dynamic heat source pendulum type triaxial micromechanical accelerometer disclosed by the invention is as follows:
and (a) thermally oxidizing the 0.5 mu m thick silicon dioxide film on the N-type (100) monocrystalline silicon wafer.
And (b) photoetching the silicon dioxide film to form an omnibearing vibrator heater and thermistor structure pattern.
And (c) sputtering a metal layer consisting of a chromium adhesion layer and a platinum layer on the photoresist and the silicon dioxide in sequence by using a magnetron sputtering process.
And (d) stripping the metal layers except the patterns of the omnibearing vibrator heater and the thermistor structure by adopting an ultrasonic stripping process to form the omnibearing vibrator heater and the thermistor structure.
And (e) etching away a part of silicon dioxide by adopting photoetching and wet etching processes.
And (f) corroding and processing by adopting a silicon etching process to form a groove with the depth of 300 mu m, so that the omnibearing vibrator heater and the thermistor are suspended and fixed on the sensitive layer through the silicon dioxide film, and the processing of the sensitive layer is completed.
And (g) thermally oxidizing the 0.5 mu m thick silicon dioxide film on another N-type (100) monocrystalline silicon wafer.
And (h) photoetching the silicon dioxide film to form an omnibearing vibrator heater structure.
And (i) sputtering a metal layer consisting of a chromium adhesion layer and a platinum layer on the photoresist and the silicon dioxide in sequence by using a magnetron sputtering process.
And (j) stripping the metal layer except the pattern of the omnibearing vibrator heater structure by adopting an ultrasonic stripping process to form the omnibearing vibrator heater structure.
And (k) etching away a part of silicon dioxide by adopting photoetching and wet etching processes.
And (l) etching thoroughly by adopting a silicon etching process to form an intermediate heating cavity, so that the omnibearing vibrator heater is suspended and fixed on the upper sensitive layer through the silicon dioxide film, and the processing of the upper sensitive layer is completed.
And (m) bonding the lower sensitive layer and the upper sensitive layer through a bonding process.
And (n) bonding the cover plate and the upper sensitive layer through a bonding process, so that the upper surface of the sensitive layer is positioned in the closed cavity, and processing of the sensitive element is completed.
In summary, the invention breaks through the inherent mode of the previous research on the heat flow accelerometer, and provides the omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum triaxial micromechanical accelerometer, so that a heater with a very high temperature gradient moves, and deflects under the action of inertia force to form a large temperature gradient at a thermistor, thereby realizing the output with large sensitivity. The sensitive structure of the accelerometer is an omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum heater. The omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum sensitive structure can swing up and down along a Z axis vertical to the plane of the sensitive layer, has the freedom degree of inertia force on any azimuth angle on the XOY plane of the sensitive layer, and can be sensitive to input acceleration on three axes. The omnibearing dynamic heat source pendulum heater is suspended at the central position of the sensitive layer through six completely symmetrical semicircular supporting beams to realize triaxial measurement of acceleration, and has wide measurement range, high sensitivity and high response speed. The invention inherits the advantages of the MEMS sensor, has the characteristics of compact structure, small volume, light weight, low cost, easy intellectualization and integration, and the like, and accords with the development direction of the sensor towards microminiature, comprehensive and intelligent. Meanwhile, the method has the advantages of simple processing technology, extremely low cost, high reliability and excellent vibration and impact resistance.
It should be noted that the above embodiments are merely for illustrating the technical solution of the present invention and not for limiting the same, and although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the above embodiments, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that the technical solution described in the above embodiments may be modified or some or all of the technical features may be equivalently replaced, and these modifications or substitutions do not make the essence of the corresponding technical solution deviate from the scope of the technical solution of the embodiments of the present invention.