This paper reports a piezoelectric aluminum nitride (AlN) based micro-machined infrasonic hydrophone. We have conducted a systematic design study for the hydrophone sensor to meet the stringent requirements of underwater applications. The hydrophone sensor was fabricated on a cavity silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate using an in-house CMOS-compatible AlN-on-SOI process platform. A 5 × 5 arrayed hydrophone sensor was characterized thoroughly using an industry-standard hydrophone calibration instrument. The results show that the hydrophone achieved a sound sensitivity of −182.5 dB ± 0.3 dB (ref. to 1 V rms/μPa) and an eligible acceleration sensitivity of only −196.5 dB (ref. to 1 V rms/μg), respectively, a non-linearity of 0.11%, a noise resolution of 57.5 dB referenced to 1 μPa/√Hz within an ultra-low operation bandwidth of 10 Hz∼100 Hz, the highest noise resolution of micro-machined hydrophones reported to date, and better than traditional bulky hydrophones in terms of the same application. The size of the 5 × 5 arrayed hydrophone sensor is about 2 mm × 2 mm.
The problem of simultaneously enhancing sensitivity and noise immunity of microcantilevers is investigated. The dependence of deflection and resonant frequency of a microcantilever on its dimensions is studied. A principle to increase deflection and resonant frequency simultaneously is established. Several cantilevers agreeing with this principle are investigated using analytical models and are compared with FEM simulations. Using these results, a cantilever profile that achieves a larger deflection and a larger resonant frequency compared with uniform cantilevers is proposed to be used in sensor elements.
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