POSITIONING AND WIDTH ANALYSIS

OF IDT WITH MICROHEATER FOR

BETTER GAS SENSITIVITY
OUTLINE
INTRODUCTION TO MEMS
MEMS BASED GAS SENSOR
NEED OF MICRO HEATER IN GAS SENSOR
JOULE HEATING
IDT
LITERATURE REVIEW
GAPS IN PRESENT STUDY
OBJECTIVES
REFERENCES
MEMS and Micro Sensor
Micro Sensor: It is a sensor that has at least one physical
dimension at the sub millimeter (micron) level.

MEMS –Micro Electro Mechanical System.

MEMS is a device where micro sensor and mechanical

parts along with signal processing circuits are integrated
on a small piece of silicon.

INPUT SENSOR PROCESSOR ACTUATOR

Why MEMS ?

IC Compatible  Higher Performance

Miniaturization  Smaller
 Ruggedness
 Lower Power Consumption

Batch Fabrication  Low Cost

Applications
 Automobiles
 Machines
 Robotics
 Medicine
 Aerospace etc.
GAS SENSOR
 Gas sensor is a subclass of chemical sensors.
 Gas sensor determines which gas is present around
and measures the concentration of gas on its surface.
Gas sensor interacts with a gas to measure its
concentration.
Applications:
 Process control industries
 Environmental monitoring
 Alcohol breath tests
 Detection of hazardous gases in environment
 Home safety
Chemiresistive semiconducting metal oxides are
widely used as gas sensor because of certain
advantages like, very low cost, high sensitivity, fast
response, simple electronic interface, ease of use,
low maintenance and ability to detect large number
of gases.

Mainly gas sensor are used to detect gases like,

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), Nitric oxide (NO), Nitrous
oxide (N2O), Carbon monoxide (CO), Ammonia
(NH3), Methane (CH4), Sulfur dioxide (SO2), Carbon
dioxide (CO2).
NEED OF MICROHEATER
Micro-Heaters have been the subject of great interest
owing to their extensive applications in gas sensors,
humidity sensors and other micro-systems.
 A micro-heater has low power consumption and
better temperature uniformity.
As we increase the heating area of micro heater, we
can achieve proper detection of selective gases in
terms of ppm or ppb.
Joule Heating
In micro-heaters the basic principle is base on joule
heating. Joule heating is also known as ohmic
heating and resistive heating.
The electric field equals the negative of gradient of
the potential V. All The generated resistive heat Q is
proportional to the square of the magnitude of the
electric current density J. Also Current density J is
proportional to the electric field E:

Q α │J│2
Cont…
The proportionality constant is the electric
resistivity ρ or the reciprocal of the temperature
dependent electric conductivity σ. Combining these
facts we have,

 ρ = 1/σ
 σ = σ (T)
 Q = ρ *│J│2 = (1/σ) *│σ E│2 = σ │∆V│2
 IDT
The term interdigited, selected for use throughout this, refers to a digitlike or fingerlike
periodic pattern of parallel in-plane electrodes used to build up the resistance when a gas is
present on the material sample or sensitive coating.

A typical chemical interdigited sensor design is to deposit interdigited electrodes on an

insulating substrate. The electrodes are coated with a thin layer of material that is sensitive
to the concentration of chemicals present in the ambient atmosphere. The most common
outputs of measurement are changes in resistance and capacitance between electrodes. The
sensing mechanism is that when the sensor is exposed to ambient chemicals, the
interaction of the chemicals with the sensitive material coating changes the material’s
conductivity , dielectric constant ,and/or the effective thickness of the sensitive layer. The
change in conductivity and effective thickness result in a resistance change, and the change
of dielectric constant and effective thickness of the sensitive layer changes the capacitance.

Interdigital chemical sensors are inexpensive to manufacture and can be integrated on a

chip consisting of the sensor element and signal processing electronics.
LITERATURE REVIEW
In [1], four different
geometries single
meander, double
meander, fan type and
square geometries are
analyzed.
For same material, same
surface area and same
applied voltage, square
type geometry gives
better temperature
distribution among all.
In [2], it describes the
fabrication and characteristics of
a NO sensor using ZnO thin film
integrated SiC micro heater
based on SiC thin film of
operation in harsh
environments.
By using the Pt added ZnO thin
film was showed higher
sensitivity, lower working
temperature, and faster
adsorption characteristics to NO
gas than the pure ZnO thin film.
In [3], it gives simulation results
of micro-heaters by using six
different patterns like, Plane plate
with central square hole, Double
spiral, Honey comb, S- shape, fan
shape and meander type with
their Electro thermal simulated
temperature profile.
For the same supply voltage
applied, the uniform temperature
profile and same power
consumption, high temperature
uniformity is achieved in fan type
patterns of micro-heater
In [4], this paper presents
simulation results of Polyimide
(PI) based micro-heater
operating in the temperature
range of 200- 250⁰C which could
be operated at low voltage.
Three different micro heater
geometries have been simulated.
The resistive track width and the
gap between the consecutive
tracks are varied and the area
over which uniform temperature
is obtained.
In [5], the geometric
optimization for the micro-
heater has been performed on
platinum micro-heater. For
applying different conditions
like,
(1) A spiral micro-heater
(2) A spiral heater with a cavity
in the silicon at the center of
micro-heater
(3) A suspended spiral micro-
heater on four bridges
(4) A spiral micro-heater with
sensing layer of ZnO,
And results are analyzed.
In [6], they present the
fabrication of a carbon monoxide
(CO) micro gas sensor integrated
with an inverting amplifier circuit
and a micro heater on chip using
CMOS process.
The structure is made up such
that Polysilicon resistor is on to
sensing film (SnO2) and micro-
heater is attached with it.
The inverting amplifier circuit is
utilized to convert the resistance
of the gas sensor into the voltage
output.
In [7], this paper presents design, simulation,
fabrication and experimental characterization of the
platinum micro-heater elements built on alumina
substrate. Micro-heaters are designed for application
where the device has to be heated up to 700 °C in less
than a 200 ms.
Choosing the proper combination of electrical,
thermal and mechanical characteristics of thick film
heating resistor, glass layer and substrate are taken and
analyzed.
In [8], presented for the first Figure:
time is the design and
fabrication of high temperature,
low power consumption, and
good thermal uniformity micro-
heaters for environmental gas
sensors.
A Wheatstone-bridge type
resistive Pt heating structure
and a multi-ringed heat
spreading structure was applied
to enhance the thermal
uniformity.
[9] This paper describes the
structural design and electrothermal
analysis of a microheater array to find
out the thermal characteristic with
different bias voltage.
The array consists of four unit cell,
each of 3mm x 3mm of dimension
with a membrane size of 1.5mm x 1.5
mm.
This device has the unique
advantage of making the microheater
and interdigitated electrode co-
planner using a single lithography
process.
GAPS IN PRESENT STUDY
Micro-heater geometries generally used for proper detection of
gases on MEMS based gas sensor, there is more preference given to
high temperature. But oxidation and reduction processes occur in
MOS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) based gas sensor around 380K
to 600K. And some micro-heater materials do not support high
temperature as high temperature changes its parameters.
Although at less temperature some sensing material like, WO 3
(Tungsten trioxide), SnO2 (Stannic oxide), ZnO (Zinc Oxide) are
widely used and give very good gas concentration value on surface.
There are different geometries analyzed and compared to one
another. But very less work is done regarding the positioning and
width analysis of IDT in a coplanar micro-heater design.
OBJECTIVES
To simulate co-planar micro-heater geometries and to
make analysis which geometry is better.
To simulate a fixed geometry by varying IDT position
and dimensions to improve the sensitivity for gas
detection.
To achieve a geometry optimization in fixed surface
area for given structure for temperature uniformity.
References
[1] L. Sujatha, V. S. Selvakumar, S. Aravind, R. Padamapriya, B. Preethi, “Design and Analysis of
Micro-Heaters using COMSOL Multiphysics for MEMS Based Gas Sensor”, Proceedings COMSOL
Conference, India, 2012.
[2] Jae-Cheol Shim, Gwiy-Sang Chung, “Fabrication and Characteristics of Pt/ZnO NO Sensor
Integrated SiC Micro Heater”, IEEE SENSORS Conference, India, 2010.
[3] Velmathi G., Ramshanker N., Mohan S., “2D Simulations and Electro-Thermal Analysis of
Micro-Heater Designs Using COMSOLTM for Gas Sensor Applications” COMSOL Conference,
India, 2010.
[4] M. Gayake, D. Bokdas, S. Gangal, “Simulations of Polymer based Microheater Operated at Low
Voltage”, COMSOL Conference, India, 2011.
[5] Vineet Bansal , Anil Gurjar, Dinesh Kumar, B. Prasad, “3-D Design, Electro-Thermal Simulation
and Geometrical Optimization of spiral Platinum Micro-heaters for Low Power Gas sensing
applications using COMSOLTM”, COMSOL Conference, India, 2011.
[6] Ching-Liang Dai, Mao-Chen Liu, “Nano particle SnO2 Gas Sensor with Circuit and Micro
Heater on Chip Fabricated Using CMOS-MEMS Technique”, IEEE International Conference on
Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems pp. 16 - 19, Bangkok, Thailand, 2007.
[7] Sasa Toskov, Ronald Glatz, Goran Miskovic, Goran Radosavljevic, “Modeling and Fabrication of
Pt Micro–Heaters Built on Alumina Substrate”, 36th Int. Spring Seminar on Electronics Technology,
2013.
[8] H. Y. Lee, S. Moon, S. J. Park, J. Lee, K.-H. Park, J. Kim, “Micro- Machined resistive micro-
heaters for high temperature gas sensing applications”, Electronics Lett. Vol. 44 No. 25, 2008.
[9] S.S.Mondal, S.Roy, C.K.Sarkar, “Design and Electrothermal analysis of MEMS based
Microheater Array for Gas Sensor using INVAR alloy”, International Conference on
Communications, Devices and Intelligent Systems (CODIS), 2012.
THANK YOU