Two orders of magnitude increase in metal piezoresistor sensitivity through nanoscale inhomogenization

Mohanasundaram, SM and Pratap, Rudra and Ghosh, Arindam (2012) Two orders of magnitude increase in metal piezoresistor sensitivity through nanoscale inhomogenization. In: JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS, 112 (8).

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Abstract

Metal-based piezoresistive sensing devices could find a much wider applicability if their sensitivity to mechanical strain could be substantially improved. Here, we report a simple method to enhance the strain sensitivity of metal films by over two orders of magnitude and demonstrate it on specially designed microcantilevers. By locally inhomogenizing thin gold films using controlled electromigration, we have achieved a logarithmic divergence in the strain sensitivity with progressive microstructural modification. The enhancement in strain sensitivity could be explained using non-universal tunneling-percolation transport. We find that the Johnson noise limited signal-to-noise ratio is an order of magnitude better than silicon piezoresistors. This method creates a robust platform for engineering low resistance, high gauge factor metallic piezoresistors that may have profound impact on micro and nanoscale self-sensing technology. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4761817]

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS
Publisher:	AMER INST PHYSICS
Additional Information:	Copyright for this article belongs to AMER INST PHYSICS, MELVILLE, USA
Department/Centre:	Division of Interdisciplinary Sciences > Centre for Nano Science and Engineering Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	17 Dec 2012 05:47
Last Modified:	17 Dec 2012 05:47
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/45555

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