Micro-Fabricated Presure Sensor Using 50 nm-Thick of Pd-Based Metallic Glass Freestanding Membrane

This paper reports on micro-fabricated pressure sensors based on a thin metallic glass membrane. The Pd(66)Cu(4)Si(30) metallic glass material is deposited successfully by a sputter technique. An amorphous feature of the deposited film is confirmed by high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and the corresponding the selected area electron diffraction (SAED). The ultra-flat freestanding metallic glass membrane with 50 nm in thickness and 2 mm in circular diameter has been fabricated successfully. In addition, two kinds of micro-fabricated pressure sensor types, including itself membrane and additional metallic glass bar as piezoresistive sensing elements, are proposed and fabricated. A displacement of membrane can reach over 100 µm without any damage to membrane which is equivalent to over 0.7% of an elastic strain. Besides, the temperature coefficient of resistance of the Pd-based metallic glass thin film is extremely low 9.6 × 10(−6) °C(−1). This development of nano-thick metallic glass membrane possibly opens a new field of micro-fabricated devices with large displacement and enhanced sensing.