SENSOR

Abstract: The invention relates to an accelerometer including a cantilevered beam (1) with a free end, said beam comprising at least a piezoelectric layer (2) and at least a supporting layer (3). The ratio of the thickness t>1< of the piezoelectric layer relative to the thickness t>2< of the supporting layer is in the range 2-4. The ratio of the modulus of elasticity for the supporting material relative to the modulus of elasticity of the piezoelectric material is in the range 8-12.

Description: Sensor Field of the invention The present invention relates to a beam-shaped sensor or accelerometer in accordance with the preamble of the attached main claim. Background of the invention WO 89/00294 discloses a conventional beam type accelerometer of the above kind which comprises two layers, a supporting layer made of silicon and a piezoelectric layer bonded to said layer. This accelerometer is intended to be suitable for mass manufacture from silicon wafers and is also intended to be sensitive in a single plane only relative to its mounting. The accelerometer also is intended to have improved sensitivity. Although this prior art accelerometer is relatively easy to manufacture, it is sensitive in a plane and it is relatively large, the preferred embodiment having an overall length of about 4 mm. US-A-5425750 discloses another accelerometer comprising a layered beam. The beam comprises a electrically conducting substrate such as beryllium copper which on each side is covered with a transducing layer of a piezoelectric polymer. The accelerometer is provided with an additional sensing mass in the free end of the beam which is offset in relation to the longitudinal direction of the beam in order to ensure that the accelerometer is sensitive in all directions in a plane . This prior art thus also is sensitive in several directions, particularly in a direction which is oriented along the longitudinal extent of the beam, i. e. in a direction which is oriented orthogonally to the main direction of sensitivity. The device further is relatively large (a length of about 4mm in the preferred embodiment) and is comparatively complicated to manufacture. In many applications, such as for instance so-called rate- responsive pacemakers, i. e. pacemakers sensing the physical activity of the patient in order to increase or decrease the stimulation rate applied to the heart in dependence on said activity, there is a need of an accelerometer which may be easy and cheap to manufacture, which, if so is desired, may have one main sensor sensitivity axis and a negligible cross sensitivity, i. e. a sensitivity which is negligible in directions orthogonal to said main sensitivity axis, which may be made small, which may be designed to be very sensitive and which may be designed to be highly resistant to shocks. This consequently is the problem to be solved by means of the invention. Description of the inventive concept According to the invention the above problems are solved with an accelerometer of the above kind which is provided with the features set forth in the characterizing part of the attached main claim. Preferred embodiments of the invention are set forth in the dependent claims. Short description of the appended drawings Fig 1 illustrates a preferred embodiment of the invention. Fig 2 illustrates a second preferred embodiment of the invention. Fig 3 illustrates the size of the accelerometer in Fig 2. Fig 4 illustrates a simplified, schematic embodiment of the invention. Fig 5 is a detail of the beam in Fig 4. Fig 6 illustrates a way of manufacturing an accelerometer according to the invention. Description of preferred embodiments of the invention. Figs 1 and 2 illustrate side views of two preferred embodiments of the invention. A beam 1 comprises a piezoelectric layer 2, which for instance may be made of PZT, and a supporting layer 3. The supporting layer preferably should be of an electrically conducting material. The material in the supporting layer should have a high density. A suitable material is binderless tungsten carbide. The two layers are joined together by means of a layer 4 of an electrically conducting glue. The supporting layer at the free end of the beam is enlarged to form a sensing mass 5 which thus is made in one piece with the supporting layer 3. The sensing mass 5 has a center of gravity 6. Tungsten carbide is a particularly suitable material since it has a high density, is very strong and has a very high modulus of elasticity as well as being electrically conducting. The high density of the material in the supporting layer results in that the mass of the sensing mass will be large. The supporting layer at the opposite end of the beam 1 is also enlarged to form a support 7 which thus also is made in one piece with the supporting layer. The support is glued on to the substrate layer 8, which for instance could be a printed circuit board or a thick film substrate. The beam thus will be cantilevered from this support. The free upper side of the piezoelectric layer is coated with a thin metallic layer serving as an electrode. A lead or band wire 9 connects this electrode with the substrate. Since the supporting layer 3 is electrically conductive, the layer 3 will, in conjunction with the layer 4 of electrically conductive glue, serve as electrode and conductor for the inner side of the piezoelectric layer. Fig 2 illustrates another embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment the accelerometer has a main direction of sensitivity and a secondary direction of sensitivity which is oriented orthogonally to said main direction of sensitivity. The sensitivity in this secondary direction, i. e. the output from the accelerometer in this direction, should be negligible and to this end the beam is oriented in in such a way that a force through the center of gravity of the sensing mass forms an angle α with the longitudinal direction of the beam. Like reference signs in the two embodiments according to Figs 1 and 2 denote like features. Fig 3 illustrates the size of a preferred embodiment of the device shown in Fig 2. In this embodiment the two distances li defining the size of the support 7 are 290 μm, the height hi of the support is 259 μm, the overall length 1 2 of the beam including support and sensing mass is 2434 μm (« 2.4 mm) , and the two heights h 2 and h 3 defining the size of the sensing mass are 472 respectively 815 μm. The free, deformable length 1 3 of the beam is 1160 μm, the thickness ti of the supporting layer is 22 μm, the thickness t 3 of the layer bonding the supporting layer and the piezoelectric layer is 10 μm and the thickness t 2 of the piezoelectric layer will be 65 μm. The angle α is 14 degrees. The maximal height of the accelerometer over the substrate is 866 μm. The deflection of the free end of the beam under the influence of a force along the main axis of sensitivity is in the size order of one nanometer. The device according to the invention thus may be designed to be much smaller than the prior art devices described above . The width of the accelerometer may for instance be 760 μm. This width will be sufficient to ensure that the accelerometer is insensitive in directions orthogonal to the plane of the drawing. Apart from the desired rigidity in the direction orthogonal to the plane of the drawing, there are no restrictions on the width. As indicated above, the supporting layer is made of a material with a very high strength and may thus be made thin in comparison to the piezoelectric layer. In conjunction with the high modulus of elasticity which is very high, the supporting layer will guide the deflection of the beam in such a way that the neutral layer of the beam will be located close to the boundary between supporting layer and piezoelectric layer or even in the supporting layer. This will ensure that the piezoelectric layer will be deformed in such a way that a very high sensitivity is obtained. The ratio of the modulae of elasticity for the supporting layer and the piezoelectric layer should be in the range 8 - 12, preferably about 10. The material in the supporting layer in a preferred embodiment should have a modulus of elasticity > 400 GPa, preferably > 500 GPa whereas the material in the piezoelectric layer should have a modulus of elasticity < 40 GPa, preferably < 50 GPa, more preferably < 70 GPa. The tungsten carbide used in the preferred embodiment has an modulus of elasticity of about 670 GPa whereas the modulus of elasticity for PZT is about 67 GPa. Both these materials are ceramic materials and are well matched in regard of their thermal expansion coefficients. A suitable range for the ratio R between the thicknesses of the supporting layer and the piezoelectric layer in this case might be between 2 and 5, in the preferred embodiment 3. The presence of the angle α as defined above has the effect that the sum of the deformations along the beam under the influence of a force which is orthogonal to the main direction of sensitivity is negligible, i. e. that the output from the piezoelectric layer as a result of this force will be negligible and that the accelerometer consequently will be insensitive in this direction. In the preferred embodiments of the invention, for instance according to Figs 1 and 2, α may be in the range 5° < α < 30°, suitably in the range 10° < α < 16° and preferably within the range 13.5° < α < 14°.5. The angle α is to some extent dependent on the geometry of beam and sensing mass. An idea of this functional relationship may be obtained by means of the idealized and simplified model of the accelerometer shown in Figs 3 and 4. In this model X τ and Y τ are the coordinates for the center of gravity of the sensing mass in the X-Y-system, Ei is the modulus of elasticity of the piezoelectric material, E 2 is the modulus of elasticity of the supporting layer, ti is the thickness of the piezoelectric material, t 2 is the thickness of the supporting material, 1 is the deformable length of the beam, F « α Y' the main direction of sensitivity, and X' the orthogonal direction with negligible sensitivity. M is the center of gravity of the sensing mass The weight of the beam is considered negligible in comparison with the weight of the sensing mass. Under these circumstances the following functional relationship can be found, the requirement being that the mean value of the positive stress in the piezoelectric layer is compensated by the mean value of the negative stress in the layers which are caused by a force directed along the X' -axis . F = arctan Under these conditions, F is a fairly good approximation of α. A comparison with the above detailed embodiment described in conjunction with Figs 1 and 2 indicates that another way of expressing the variation of α would be 0.7E < α < 1.2E . As illustrated in Fig 6, the device according to Figs 2 and 3 can be manufactured from a bilaminar wafer comprising the supporting material and the piezoelectric material. The wafer may for instance be placed on the vacuum chuck of a so called dice cutter. The dice cutter is programmed to structure the electrically conductive material so that the support, the deflectable part of the beam and the sensing mass is formed. The dice cutter is then used to cut the structured wafer into a large number of individual accelerometers . The device according to Fig 1 of course also may be manufactured in this way. By means of the invention an accelerometer is obtained which can be designed to be very small but in spite of this highly sensitive, which may have a main direction of sensitivity and which if desired may have a negligible cross-sensitivity and which can be designed to be extremely shock-resistant. The accelerometer may have a generally linear response up to accelerations of 100 G and may be designed to withstand shocks up to 1200G.

Claims: Claims 1. Accelerometer including a cantilevered beam (1) with a free end, said beam comprising at least one piezoelectric layer (2) and at least one supporting layer (3), characterized in that the ratio of the thickness ti of the piezoelectric layer relative to the thickness t 2 of the supporting layer is in the range 2 - 4 and in that the ratio of the modulus of elasticity for the material in the supporting layer relative to the modulus of elasticity of the material in the piezoelectric layer is in the range 8 - 12. 2. Accelerometer according to claim 1, characterized in that said ratio of the thicknesses is 3. 3. Accelerometer according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that said ratio of the modulae of elasticity is 10. 4. Accelerometer according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that said modulus of elasticity of said supporting layer is > 400 GPa. 5. Accelerometer according to claim 4, characterized in that said modulus of elasticity of said supporting layer (3) is > 500 GPa. 6. Accelerometer according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the supporting layer is made of an electrically conducting material. 7. Accelerometer according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the free end of said beam (1) is provided with a sensing mass (5) located excentrically relative to the longitudinal direction of said beam. 8. Accelerometer according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that said supporting layer (3) comprises tungsten carbide. 9. Accelerometer according to claim 8, characterized in that said supporting layer (3) comprises binderless tungsten carbide. 10. Accelerometer according to any one of claims 7, 8 or 9, characterized in that said supporting layer (3) and said sensing mass (5) are made integrally of one and the same material. 11. Accelerometer according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that said piezoelectric layer (2) comprises PZT. 12. Accelerometer according to any one of claims, 6 - 11, characterized in that said accelerometer has a main direction of sensitivity and a secondary direction of sensitivity which is orthogonal to said main direction and in which the sensitivity is negligible, said secondary direction forming an angle α relative to the longitudinal direction of said beam such that a line coinciding with a force, which is oriented through the gravitational center of said sensing mass and which is directed in said secondary direction of sensitivity, also intersects said beam. 13. Accelerometer according to claim 12, characterized in that 0.7F < < 1.2F. 14. Accelerometer according to any one of claims 12 or 13, characterized in that 5° < α < 30°. 15. Accelerometer according to claim 14, characterized in that 10° < α < 16°. 16. Accelerometer according to claim 15, characterized in that 13.5° < α < 14°.5. 17. Accelerometer according to claim 14, characterized in that α = 14°.

Inventors: NILSSON EVA, NILSSON KENTH, NILSSON, EVA, NILSSON, KENTH
Applicants: NILSSON EVA, NILSSON KENTH, PACESETTER AB, NILSSON, EVA, NILSSON, KENTH
Application year: 1998
Main classification: G01P15
IPC codes: G01P15