| The importance of flexible substrates lies in the fact that they can conform to non-planar objects, can be batch fabricated at low cost and also enable multilayer construction. This has led to the development of "Smart Skin" whose objective is to integrate multifunctional sensory arrays on a single flexible substrate for multi-sensory information gathering as in mechanical, biological and chemical sensing with possible transmittance of information to a central location. Micromachined piezoresistive pressure sensors have been designed, simulated and fabricated on flexible polyimide substrates. Piezoresistive sensors have been chosen here due to high stability, sensitivity, ease in fabrication and characterization. These sensors have been designed and simulated using ANSYS and CoventorWare and optimized in order to get a good compromise between strength and durability as opposed to sensitivity and repeatability. Silicon nitride has been chosen as the shuttle plate material for these sensors due to its high yield strength. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
