Micromachined Thin-Film Sensors for Soi-CMOS Co-Integration Book

I. Introduction: Context and motivations.

0.1. Why Silicon-on-Insulator technology? 0.2. Why a thin-film membrane? 0.3. Why co-integration and CMOS compatibility—0.4. Contents of the work

II. Techniques and materials.

1. Silicon bulk micromachining with TMAH. 1.1. Introduction. 1.2. Generalities about silicon micromachining. 1.3. TMAH silicon etching. 1.4. Selectivity versus dielectrics. 1.5. Selectivity versus aluminum. 1.6. Selectivity versus other metals. 1.7. Etch-Stop. 1.8. Undercutting. 1.9. Summary.

2. Thin dielectric films stress extraction. 2.1. Introduction - Definitions, 2.2. Stress measurements by substrate curvature method. 2.3. Strain measurements using micromachined structures. 2.4. Final conclusions.

III. Microsensors.

1. Low power microhotplate as basic cell. 1.1. Introduction. 1.2. Motivations. 1.3. Materials selection. 1.4. Thermal design. 1.5. Device fabrication. 1.6. Microheater characterization and results. 1.7. Conclusions.

2. Microheater based flow sensor. 2.1. Introduction. 2.2. Design and fabrication. 2.3. Measurements results. 2.4. Discussions and comparison with the state-of-the-art. 2.5. Conclusions.

3. Gas Sensors on microhotplate. 3.1. Introduction. 3.2. Interdigitated electrodes: from design to deposition. 3.3. Sensitive layer deposition. 3.4. Summary of the fabrication steps. 3.5. Measurements results without gas. 3.6. Measurement results under gas and discussions. 3.7. Conclusions.

4. SOI-CMOS compatibility validation. 4.1. Introduction. 4.2. Basics of SOI technology. 4.3. Post-processing steps. 4.4. Measurements. 4.5. Transistors on membrane as final demonstrator. 4.6. Conclusions.

IV. Conclusions and outlook

Appendixes. A. (100) Silicon crystallography. B. About Interferometry. C. About Reflectometry.

Bibliography.

Publications originated from this work.

Index.