Fabrication of capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers for underwater applications using thermocompression wafer-bonder

Ahmad, Mansoor and Asim, Muhammad Omer and Bozkurt, Ayhan (2020) Fabrication of capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers for underwater applications using thermocompression wafer-bonder. In: 17th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences and Technology (IBCAST), Islamabad, Pakistan

[thumbnail of IBCAST.pdf] PDF
IBCAST.pdf

Download (67kB)

Abstract

Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers (CMUTs) are the prospective alternative to the traditional piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers. CMUTs are essentially parallel plate capacitors produced using Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) technology. The production of CMUTs is broken down into sacrificial underetching and wafer bonding methods. The sacrificial release-based techniques are complex and require several adjustments in terms of optimizing fabrication steps and material selections. Further, the sacrificial release-based processes need ultimate control over the gap height and membrane thickness. On the contrary, the wafer bonding fabrication processes are not only simpler than the sacrificial release methods but also provide a very good parametric control over the membrane thickness and gap height. Besides its advantages, the wafer bonding methods are very sensitive to contamination and surface roughness. The surface roughness problems are addressed by either using the costly Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) wafers or by using complex Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) method. This article presents a simple and economical CMUTs wafer bonding fabrication method. A thermocompression based metal bonded technique is adopted to successfully fabricate low frequency CMUTs to be used for underwater applications.
Item Type: Papers in Conference Proceedings
Divisions: Sabancı University Nanotechnology Research and Application Center
Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences > Academic programs > Electronics
Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences
Depositing User: Mansoor Ahmad
Date Deposited: 12 May 2020 13:29
Last Modified: 30 Jul 2023 19:29
URI: https://research.sabanciuniv.edu/id/eprint/39888

Actions (login required)

View Item
View Item