A major problem that often arises in modeling Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) such as Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) sensors using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is the extensive computational capacity required. In this study a new approach is adopted to significantly reduce the computational capacity needed for analyzing the response of a SAW sensor using the finite element (FE) method. The approach is based on the plane wave solution where the properties of the wave vary in two dimensions and are uniform along the thickness of the device. The plane wave solution therefore allows the thickness of the SAW device model to be minimized; the model is referred to as a Reduced 3D Model (R3D). Various configurations of this novel R3D model are developed and compared with theoretical and experimental frequency data and the results show very good agreement. In addition, two-dimensional (2D) models with similar configurations to the R3D are developed for comparison since the 2D approach is widely adopted in the literature as a computationally inexpensive approach to model SAW sensors using the FE method. Results illustrate that the R3D model is capable of capturing the SAW response more accurately than the 2D model; this is demonstrated by comparison of centre frequency and insertion loss values. These results are very encouraging and indicate that the R3D model is capable of capturing the MEMS-based SAW sensor response without being computationally expensive.
A new approach is developed for evaluating the adhesion of SU-8 thin films using a surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensor. The SAW sensor consists of a silicon (Si) substrate coated with a thin aluminum nitride (AlN) film and two sets of inter-digital electrodes (IDT) patterned on the AlN surface. Two sensor configurations are developed in order to evaluate the adhesion of SU-8. In the first configuration the SU-8 layer is patterned on top of a gold film that is deposited on the AlN surface. In the second configuration the gold film is coated with an omnicoat layer prior to patterning the SU-8 film. Omnicoat is an adhesion promoter for SU-8, which is used to increase its adhesion to gold. The frequency responses from both configurations are measured and the shift in the center frequency value is evaluated. The results illustrate that without omnicoat the center frequency shifts to a higher value indicating an increase in the wave velocity. This is because the poor adhesion of the SU-8 layer without omnicoat causes the wave to be more concentrated in the AlN/Si structure and AlN has a higher acoustic wave velocity in comparison to the SU-8 layer. In addition, four SAW sensors operating at four different center frequencies are developed to investigate the change in sensor sensitivity with the increase in center frequency. The results indicate that the sensor sensitivity increases proportionally to the increase in operating frequency. Finally, a theoretical model is developed to calculate the wave dispersion profile for the SU-8/AlN/Si configuration. The interface of the SU-8/AlN layers is modeled as a layer of mass-less springs with stiffness K(N m−3). The shifts in the wave dispersion profile at different levels of interface spring stiffness are compared to the experimental values to evaluate the adhesion of the SU-8 layer.
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