A novel MEMS field emission accelerometer based on silicon nanotips array

A novel MEMS field emission accelerometer based on silicon nanotips array with about 10000 silicon tips in total is proposed. It consists of a proof mass, four L-shaped springs, silicon nanotips array, anode and feedback electrodes. The sensor is fabricated on one N-type (1 0 0) single crystal silicon wafer and one #7740 glass wafer using bulk silicon micromachining technology. The silicon tip arrays are form by wet etching with HNA (HNO3, HF and CH3COOH) with I-2 as additive. After oxidation sharpening, the curvature radius of the tips is smaller than 50nm, and the tip arrays are metalized by sputtering TiW/Au film. ICP process is utilized to release the sensor chip. In order to improve the linearity of the sensor, a feedback control circuit is used to rebalance the proof mass. The accelerometer is tested on a dividing head and test results show that the sensitivity is about 420mV/g and nonlinearity is about 0.7% over a range of -1g similar to 1g.