Design and simulation of a high sensitive stripped-shaped piezoresistive pressure sensor

Abstract

This paper deals with the design and simulation of a stripped-shaped piezoresistive pressure sensor. The sensor is based on the Wheatstone bridge configuration. The piezoresistive effect is a change in the electrical resistivity of a semiconductor or metal when mechanical strain is applied. For designing the sensor, piezoresistors are placed in series on each side of the square. The number of the piezoresistor arms is varied in two proposed designs where the sensitivity and the operable pressure range are analyzed with their characteristics. The COMSOL Multiphysics software is used for this work. The simulated sensitivity is about 7.736 mV/V/MPa over the range of pressure from 0 to 5 MPa. The simulated result reveals that the sensitivity significantly depends on the placement of the resistors, combination of the materials, shape of diaphragm, and size of diaphragm.