SILICON MICROMACHINING FOR INTEGRATED RADIANT SENSORS

Advances in silicon micromachining technology have greatly contributed towards the evolution of silicon micromechanical sensors and have added to the viability of microactuators fabricated in silicon. Both bulk and surface micromachining have also been employed for the realization of various new types of radiant sensors. Moreover, the performance of certain conventional radiant sensor types is greatly enhanced by subjecting the sensor structure to a micromachining step. The micromachining technology involved is usually adopted after successful implementation in a micromechanical sensor, which limits the impact of these efforts on the technology and seemingly results in a one-way traffic from technology research towards this branch of sensor research. However, several techniques that have been commonplace in optics can, depending on the definition of micromachining, also be regarded as non-conventional micromachining steps. The interaction between optics and micromachining is, therefore, less trivial. A survey is presented here on the application of conventional and non-conventional micromachining techniques to radiant sensors.