Microfabrication of a Novel Ceramic Pressure Sensor with High Sensitivity Based on Low-Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic (LTCC) Technology

In this paper, a novel capacitance pressure sensor based on Low-Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic (LTCC) technology is proposed for pressure measurement. This approach differs from the traditional fabrication process for a LTCC pressure sensor because a 4J33 iron-nickel-cobalt alloy is applied to avoid the collapse of the cavity and to improve the performance of the sensor. Unlike the traditional LTCC sensor, the sensitive membrane of the proposed sensor is very flat, and the deformation of the sensitivity membrane is smaller. The proposed sensor also demonstrates a greater responsivity, which reaches as high as 13 kHz/kPa in range of 0–100 kPa. During experiments, the newly fabricated sensor, which is only about 6.5 cm, demonstrated very good performance: the repeatability error, hysteresis error, and nonlinearity of the sensor are about 4.25%, 2.13%, and 1.77%, respectively.