Ultrasensitive H igh Sensitivity Dielectric F illed Lamé Mode Resonator for

C hemical and Biological A pplications

A. Heidari*,**, Y.-J. Yoon**, W.-T. Park* and J. Tsai Ming Lin*
*
Institute of Microelectronics, A*STAR (Agency for Science,
Technology and Research), 117685, Singapore, tsaiml@ime.a-star.edu.sg
**
Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore, yongjiny@ntu.edu.sg

A BST R A C T at a frequency of 37.8 MHz. The transducer capacitive gap is

This paper presents a mass sensitive biosensor utilizing a filled with silicon nitride which helps to achieve smaller gap
Lame' mode micromachined resonator. The mass sensitivity distance in comparison with air gap counterparts [7]. Filling
of the sensor has been investigated. A biosensor with Q the gap also provides some other benefits since it better
value of more than 10,000 and mass sensitivity of -400Hz/ng, stabilizes the resonator structure against shock and
has been demonstrated at a resonant frequency of 37.8MHz. eliminates the possibility of particles or liquid getting into
Frequency shift in response to additional mass is simulated the electrode-to-resonator air gap, which poses a potential
in COMSOL. The obtained results show that the Lame' reliability issue. The Q-factor of the transducer is also
mode micromachined resonator has a potential to be used as improved, as there is no squeezed air damping in the gap.
an alternative to the QCM biosensors. The working principle and fabrication of Lame' mode
square resonator will be introduced in the following section.
Keywords: biomass sensor, sensitivity, quality factor, The silicon-on-insulator fabrication process flow is also
capacitive excitation presented in this section. In section 3, differential
drive-and-sense measurement setup is explained. Section 5
1 INTRODUC TION concludes the paper.

Micro and nano electromechanical (MEMS/NEMS) 2 W O R K I N G PR I N C IPL E A N D

resonators for mass sensing applications has been F ABRIC A TION
extensively explored recently. The working principle of The microresonator consists of a square plate supported
these types of sensors is that the resonant frequency of the by four beams attached to it from the corners (see Figure 1).
resonator shifts in response to a mass loading on the The square plate is separated from the surrounding
resonator surface. They are suitable for studying molecular electrodes with a 80nm nitride gap that defines the
interactions, surface characterizations, and detection of capacitance of the electro-mechanical transducer. The
explosives, protein and antibody [1]. In many of these resonator is laterally driven with electrodes on two opposite
applications, higher sensitivity leads to better performance sides of the square plate symmetrically. A dc-bias voltage
and sensing smaller masses. Further miniaturization using (VP) is applied to the structure via the anchors, while two ac
nanofabrication techniques allows higher mass sensitivity, input voltages are applied to the input electrodes with 180
but it includes the low device-to-device performance degrees of phase difference. These voltages result in a
reproducibility and difficulties to electrically interface [2]. time-varying electrostatic force on the plate edges which
Quartz Crystal Microbalances (QCMs) have been makes it oscillate in its fundamental frequencies in the lamé
successfully employed as mass sensors, but they are only mode. The capacitive gap distances of the opposite side
able to detect few nanogeram ranges due to their limited change with this frequency. Because of the presence of
mass sensitivity [3]. electrostatic field in the gap, a time-varying current is
These issues have been solved by using the dielectric induced in the output electrode.
filled lamé mode bulk acoustic resonator. Compared to The square resonator is vibrating in the Lamé mode. In
previously reported mass sensors [4-6], the presented sensor this mode, adjacent edges of the square plate bend in
shows a potential to detect smaller biological agents by anti-phase while the plate volume is preserved. Nodal points
producing a high quality output signal at atmospheric of resonance are located at the four corners of the square and
pressure. As this resonator vibrates in in-plane mode, it at the centre of the plate.
shears the surrounding media instead of compressing. So it
improves the quality factor in air and liquid environments. In
addition, compared to previously reported mass sensors, the
presented sensor can detect smaller biological agents.
The designed biomass sensor is a micro machined silicon
squared plate with capacitive excitation mechanism. The
resonator is excited in the Lamé bulk acoustic resonant mode

NSTI-Nanotech 2011, www.nsti.org, ISBN 978-1-4398-7139-3 Vol. 2, 2011 365

 where k r is the effective stiffness of the resonator, A0 and
d0 are the electrode-to-resonator overlap area and static gap
spacing, respectively; Ȧ ʌI0 is the radian resonance
frequency; İr is the relative permittivity and is 7.8 for the
case of the silicon nitride; Q is the q-factor of resonator; VP
is the dc-bias vROWDJHȖLVD PRGLILHGTXRWLHQWRIVWLIIQHVV
between the solid gap and surrounding electrode plates that
is empirically extracted to be 7.67×10-4.
Generally, smaller values of Rx are preferred in order to
correctly PDWFKWRWKHW\SLFDOȍWRȍLPSHGDQces [10].
According to Eq. (2), the motional resistance (Rx) is strongly
depended to the electrode-to-resonator gap size (d0). The
need for smaller gaps requires a difficult and challenging
fabrication process. Although, 100nm lateral gaps have been
achieved previously in the structures using the direct e-beam
Figure 1. Schematic of square resonator, anchors, input and lithography [11], getting the smaller gaps is limited with
output electrodes. lithography related problems. Avoiding the direct
lithography, a new fabrication process is applied to achieve
A Cross-sectional view of the square resonator, showing the small submicron gap.
the 80nm nitride gap between resonator and its electrodes is Simulation of the Q-factor value for a resonator is not
depicted in Figure 2. The filled nitride gap defines the simple due to complexity in modeling different loss
capacitive gap of the input and output capacitors. The Al mechanisms. Depending on the geometry of the resonator,
pads use to apply the electrical voltages through the p+ various energy losses that could reduce Q may come from
polysilicon. intrinsic material damping, air damping, thermo-elastic
dissipation (TED), anchor losses and surface loss
mechanisms [12]. These various factors that limit the overall
Q ( Q total) are usually expressed as

ͳ ͳ ͳ ͳ ͳ
ൌ ൅ ൅ ൅ (3)
ܳ௧௢௧௔௟ ܳ௔௡௖௛௢௥ ܳ௔௜௥ ்ܳா஽ ܳ௢௧௛௘௥
Figure 2. Cross-sectional view of the square resonator,
showing the 80nm solid gap between resonator and its where each term represents the contribution to Q total from
electrodes the corresponding energy loss mechanism. Losses due to air
damping can basically be considered negligible by placing
According to Sauerbrey equation, mass loading on the the resonator in vacuum. According to [13], Q TED is much
resonator surface causes a characteristic linear downshift in larger than Q anchor ( Q due to support losses at anchors) for
the resonant frequency of the device that can be disk resonators in the VHF and UHF ranges. Therefore, Q total
approximated by [8]: for square resonators is not limited by TED either.
Consequently anchor losses could be the dominant
Q -limiting factor for bulk-mode resonators.
߂݂ ͳ ͳ ݂݀
ܵெ ൌ ݈݅݉ ൌ (1)
௱௠՜଴ ݂଴ ߂݉ ݂଴ ݀݉ 2.1 Biosensor Fabrication
where ȟ is the external added mass on the surface per The fabrication starts with a Silicon on Insulator (SOI
unit area of the sensor, and ߂݂ ൌ ݂௅ െ ݂଴ is the frequency wafer). The thickness of device layer in the SOI wafer is
shift in response to the mass loading. The negative sign in 2ȝPThe fabrication follows with patterning the resonator
the expression indicates a downshift in the frequency with an and its anchors on the SOI wafer and deposition 80nm thick
increase in mass. LPCVD nitride. Then, a layer of 2um polysilicon is
Series motional resistance, Rx is also an important deposited. The deposited polysilicon is doped with Boron to
characteristic in practical applications. The motional get p+ poly. The recent layer is patterned and etched to
resistance of a solid-gap resonator can be approximately define the electrodes. Then the electrodes are formed by
expressed as [9]: metallization. To release the resonator and making the
reaction chamber, an anisotropic wet etch (KOH) is used.
The fabrication process flow is summarized in Figure 3.
‫ݒ‬௜ ݇௥ ݀଴ସ ͳ ͳ
ܴ௫ ൌ ؆ ଶ Ǥ ଶ ଶ ଶǤ Ǥ (2)
݅଴ ߱଴ ܸ௉ ߝ௥ ߝ଴ ‫ܣ‬଴ ܳሺௌ௢௟௜ௗீ௔௣ሻ ߛ

366 NSTI-Nanotech 2011, www.nsti.org, ISBN 978-1-4398-7139-3 Vol. 2, 2011

 Figure 5. SEM image of the fabricated biosensor

3 E X PE R I M E N T A L R ESU L TS A N D
Figure 3. Fabrication process flow (a) Pattern and etching
the resonator and its anchors on the SOI wafer and
D ISC USSI O N
deposition 40-80 nm thick LPCVD nitride (b) Deposition of
polysilicon and doping with Boron to get p+ polysilicon (c) A network analyzer is used to apply the ac voltage to the
Pattern and etch the poly to define the electrodes and doing sensor and measure the output signal. 7KHƕRXW-of-phase
the metallization on electrodes (d) Backside etch using nature of the adjacent sides of the square resonator is very
anisotrpic etch (KOH) to release the resonator and making useful in driving the resonator differentially (refer to Figure
the reaction chamber. 1) 7KH UHVRQDWRU¶V RXWSXW FXUUHQW LV VHQVHG XVLQJ D
differential transresistance amplifier setup. The resonator die
is wire bonded to a PCB along with a mounted
In order to etch and pattern the ȝPdevice layer in the transresistance amplifier setup.
first step of fabrication, a DRIE (STS-CMOS) is used. A The polarization dc voltage, VP is directly applied to the
cross section of resonator showing the 80nm nitride filled resonator proof-mass. An ac drive signal is split into positive
gap in Figure 4. As can be seen, many scallops form because and negative signals through a single-to-differential
of the multiplexed Etch-Passivate nature of the DRIE conversion PCB block placed outside the chamber. The
process. These scallops may cause short circuit in the drive-and-sense components are kept far apart on the PCB
capacitive gap. To solve the problem, P5000 etcher can be boards to reduce parasitics. The SOI substrate is grounded to
used. reduce the parasitics caused by feedthrough capacitance. A
simpler alternative to a fully differential sensing method is to
obtain the transmission coefficient S21 from one drive
electrode to the corresponding sense electrode (S). That is,
the S21 plot is obtained for the point S with respect to the
point D, while the two ac drives (vd+ and vdí DUH
simultaneously applied. This simplified sensing setup is
sufficient to acquire a good response for characterization.
The measurements are performed for Lamé-mode square
resonator, to get the resonance frequency, Quality factor Q,
and motional resistance, Rx. Q measurements are done using
the 3 dB bandwidth method, that is, Q computed to be the
resonance frequency from the S21 plot divided by bandwidth
at 3 dB drops from the peak. Rx values are extracted from the
measured S21 frequency response through the measured
insertion loss of the resonator at resonance with impedance
values from the transresistance test setup.
Figure 4. A cross section of resonator showing the 80nm The resonance frequency is measured at 37.8 MHz with a
nitride filled gap Q value of 10,000 in an atmospheric pressure when the
resonator is biased with a dc voltage VP of 12 V and an ac
The SEM image of the fabricated biosensor is shown in drive voltage of 62 mVpp. The motional resistance, Rx is
Figure 5. PHDVXUHG WR EH  .ȍ With the differential test setup,

NSTI-Nanotech 2011, www.nsti.org, ISBN 978-1-4398-7139-3 Vol. 2, 2011 367

 motional and feedthrough currents are drained at the mode single-crystal silicon resonator,"Applied Physics
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The mass sensitivity of the biomass sensor is estimated 1JX\HQ ³High-Q UHF Micromechanical
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up new possibilities for higher sensitivity biomass sensors
and also multiarrayed parallel mass detection.

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368 NSTI-Nanotech 2011, www.nsti.org, ISBN 978-1-4398-7139-3 Vol. 2, 2011