Fabrication of SiC Sealing Cavity Structure for All-SiC Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor Applications

Materials (Basel). 2020 Dec 30;14(1):128. doi: 10.3390/ma14010128.

Abstract

High hardness and corrosion resistance of SiC (silicon carbide) bulk materials have always been a difficult problem in the processing of an all-SiC piezoresistive pressure sensor. In this work, we demonstrated a SiC sealing cavity structure utilizing SiC shallow plasma-etched process (≤20 μm) and SiC-SiC room temperature bonding technology. The SiC bonding interface was closely connected, and its average tensile strength could reach 6.71 MPa. In addition, through a rapid thermal annealing (RTA) experiment of 1 min and 10 mins in N2 atmosphere of 1000 °C, it was found that Si, C and O elements at the bonding interface were diffused, while the width of the intermediate interface layer was narrowed, and the tensile strength could remain stable. This SiC sealing cavity structure has important application value in the realization of an all-SiC piezoresistive pressure sensor.

Keywords: all-SiC; bonding interface; piezoresistive pressure sensor; room temperature bonding.