An Electric Field Microsensor with Mutual Shielding Electrodes

This paper proposes an electric field microsensor (EFM) with mutual shielding electrodes. Based on the charge-induction principle, the EFM consists of fixed electrodes and piezoelectric-driving vertically-movable electrodes. All the fixed electrodes and movable electrodes work as both sensing electrodes and shielding electrodes. In other words, all the fixed and movable electrodes are sensing electrodes, and they are mutually shielding electrodes simultaneously. The movable electrodes are driven to periodically modulate the electric field distribution at themselves and the fixed electrodes, and the induced currents from both movable and fixed electrodes are generated simultaneously. The electrode structure adopts an interdigital structure, and the EFM has been simulated by finite element methods. Simulation results show that, since the sensing area of this EFM is doubled, the variation of induced charge is twice, and therefore the output signal of the sensor is increased. The piezoelectric material, lead zirconate titanate (PZT), is prepared by the sol–gel method, and the microsensor chip is fabricated.