The nanogap pirani - a pressure sensor with superior linearity in atmospheric pressure range
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Khosraviani, Kourosh; Leung, Albert M.
- Source
- 2008 IEEE 21st International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2008. MEMS 2008. IEEE 21st International Conference on. :900-903 Jan, 2008
- Subject
- Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Linearity
Thermal conductivity
Temperature sensors
Testing
Thermal sensors
Gases
Substrates
Power engineering and energy
Micromachining
Gas detectors
- Language
- ISSN
- 1084-6999
This paper reports a surface micromachined Pirani pressure sensor with superior linearity in atmospheric pressure range. The extremely narrow gap of the device (50 nm) increases the transition pressure of the device up to 300 kPa. When the heater power is kept constant, large change in the gap thermal conductivity at different pressures alters the heater temperature and introduces undesirable nonlinearity to the device output. We tested the device with constant heater temperature in order to eliminate the effect of the heater temperature variation. Testing the device with constant heater temperature, together with the high transition pressure of the device resulted in superior output linearity and significant sensitivity to absolute pressure from 101 kPa to 650 kPa.