Micromachined accelerometer based on convection heat transfer

Abstract

A micromachined thermal accelerometer that is simple, reliable, and inexpensive to make has been developed at Simon Fraser University. The operating principle of this accelerometer is based on the free-convection heat transfer of a small hot air bubble in a sealed chamber. An experimental device that requires only four masking steps to fabricate has been built. This device has demonstrated a 0.6 milli-g sensitivity that can theoretically be extended to sub-micro-g level: A 2-axis accelerometer based on the same operating principle has also been fabricated and tested.