Abstract
An acceleration sensor based on piezoelectric thin films is proposed in this paper, which comprises the elastic element of a silicon cantilever beam and a piezoelectric structure with Li-doped ZnO piezoelectric thin films. The Li-doped ZnO piezoelectric thin films were prepared on SiO₂/Si by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering method. The microstructure and micrograph of ZnO piezoelectric thin films is analysed by a X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM), respectively. When the sputtering power of 220 W and Li-doped concentration of 5%, ZnO piezoelectric thin films have a preferred (002) orientation. The chips of the sensor were fabricated on the <100> silicon substrate by micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology, meanwhile, the proposed sensor was packaged on the printed circuit board (PCB). The experimental results show the sensitivity of the proposed sensor is 29.48 mV/g at resonant frequency (1479.8 Hz).