An epitaxial 200 nm thick film of Pb(Zr0.40Ti0.60)O3 (PZT) has been deposited by reactive rf magnetron sputtering on conductive Nb-doped SrTiO3 (100) (STO). The patterning process involved electron-beam lithography of polymethylmethacrylate, fabrication of a 75 nm thick Cr hard mask layer by means of a lift-off process, and dry etching of PZT. The smallest PZT features obtained were 100 nm in lateral dimensions. Piezoelectric sensitive scanning force microscopy in the contact mode revealed a strong increase of the piezoelectric response for feature sizes with lateral dimensions below 300 nm. It is proposed that this behavior is mainly due to vanishing a domains.
Novel, highly sensitive piezoelectric acoustic sensors based on partially unclamped Pb(Zrx, Ti1−x)O3 (PZT) coated cantilever and bridge have been fabricated by silicon micromachining. High sensitivity at low frequencies (5–100 Hz) has been achieved by patterning very narrow slits (3 to 5 µm) around the structures. A typical response of 100 mV Pa−1 and a noise equivalent pressure of 1.6 mPa Hz1/2 at 20 Hz have been measured using a 10 pF charge amplifier. Stress compensation, dry etching and integration of high performance piezoelectric thin films were the key issues. PZT/Pt/SiO2 stacks have been patterned by reactive ion etching and stress compensation has been achieved by compensating the PZT film's tensile stress by adjusting the thickness of a thermal SiO2 layer. The integration of sol–gel PZT films with a transverse piezoelectric coefficient e31,f of −12.8 C m−2 has been realized without any degradation of the properties. The microphones were successfully integrated into a miniature photoacoustic detector and tested for CO2 detection. Concentrations down to 330 ppm could be measured with significant signals.
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