Disclosure of Invention
In view of the above, the present invention provides a capacitive pressure sensor and a pressure detection device, so as to solve the problem that the conventional capacitive pressure sensor is difficult to consider both sensitivity and linear measurement range, resulting in limited performance of the capacitive pressure sensor.
In a first aspect, the present invention provides a capacitive pressure sensor comprising:
fixing the electrode layer;
the insulating layer is arranged at the upper end of the fixed electrode layer, and a groove is formed in the upper surface of the insulating layer;
The variable electrode layer seals the notch of the groove and forms a sealing cavity, and the fixed electrode layer and the variable electrode layer form a variable capacitor;
Determining the response of the variable electrode layer and the sealing cavity to air pressure according to the sensitivity of the unit area of the capacitive pressure sensor, determining the deformation degree of the variable electrode layer according to the response of the variable electrode layer and the sealing cavity to air pressure, determining the capacitance reading change of the capacitive pressure sensor according to the deformation degree of the variable electrode layer, and determining the air pressure value of the capacitive pressure sensor according to the capacitance reading change;
The calculation formula of the unit area sensitivity S of the capacitive pressure sensor is as follows:
Wherein, C is capacitance, P o is external air pressure, omega c is the displacement of the central point of the variable electrode layer, A is the area of the variable electrode layer, M C is the sensitivity of capacitance C in unit area along with the displacement omega c of the central point of the variable electrode layer, K m is the equivalent spring coefficient of the variable electrode layer, K P is the equivalent spring coefficient of the sealing cavity;
and the ratio of the equivalent spring coefficient K P of the sealing cavity to the equivalent spring coefficient K m of the variable electrode layer is larger than or equal to a preset value.
The capacitive pressure sensor has the beneficial effects that the fixed electrode layer and the variable electrode layer form the variable capacitor, and after the external air pressure changes, the variable electrode layer is stressed to deform under the difference between the external air pressure and the air pressure in the sealing cavity. And determining the response of the variable electrode layer and the sealing cavity to the air pressure according to the sensitivity of the unit area, calculating the deformation degree of the variable electrode layer according to the response of the variable electrode layer and the sealing cavity to the air pressure, calculating the capacitance reading change according to the deformation degree of the variable electrode layer, and finally obtaining the air pressure value according to the capacitance reading change. Under the condition that K P/Km is larger than a preset value, the performance of the capacitive pressure sensor is dominated by the equivalent spring coefficient K P of the sealing cavity, and the nonlinearity of the capacitor along with the deformation of the variable electrode layer and the nonlinearity of the variable electrode layer along with the change of the external air pressure can be mutually counteracted, so that the high sensitivity can be maintained, the high linearity can be simultaneously realized, namely the sensitivity and the linear measurement range of the capacitive pressure sensor can be simultaneously improved, and the performance of the capacitive pressure sensor is remarkably improved.
In an alternative embodiment, the variable electrode layer is a regular shape, and the regular shape includes one of a circle, an ellipse, and a polygon.
In an alternative embodiment, the variable electrode layer is a circular conductive membrane, and the calculation formula of the equivalent spring coefficient K m of the variable electrode layer is as follows:
Wherein E is Young's modulus of the variable electrode layer, h is thickness of the variable electrode layer, R is radius of the variable electrode layer, sigma o is prestress of the variable electrode layer, and v is Poisson's ratio of the variable electrode layer.
In an alternative embodiment, the calculation formula of the equivalent spring coefficient K P of the sealing cavity is as follows:
Where g is the depth of the sealed cavity and P i is the initial pressure in the sealed cavity.
In an alternative embodiment, the preset value is 5.
In an alternative embodiment, the variable electrode layer is a square conductive membrane, and the calculation formula of the equivalent spring coefficient K m of the variable electrode layer is as follows:
Wherein E is young's modulus of the variable electrode layer, h is thickness of the variable electrode layer, R is radius of the variable electrode layer, σ o is prestress of the variable electrode layer, v is poisson's ratio of the variable electrode layer, B 1 and B 2 are dimensionless constants, L is side length of the variable electrode layer, and f (v) is a geometric function.
In an alternative embodiment, the calculation formula of the sensitivity M C of the capacitance C according to the center point displacement ω c of the variable electrode layer is as follows:
wherein L c is the equivalent distance between the fixed electrode layer and the variable electrode layer, and ε 0 is the vacuum dielectric constant.
In an alternative embodiment, the equivalent distance L c between the fixed electrode layer and the variable electrode layer is calculated as follows:
Wherein g is the depth of the sealing cavity, t is the thickness of the insulating layer at the bottom of the sealing cavity, epsilon g is the relative dielectric constant of the sealing cavity, and epsilon r is the relative dielectric constant of the insulating layer.
In an alternative embodiment, the non-linearity of the capacitive pressure sensorThe calculation formula of (2) is as follows:
where Δc max is the maximum value of the difference between the measured value of capacitance C and the linear fit value, and C FS is the full scale capacitance change.
In a second aspect, the invention also provides pressure detection equipment, which comprises the capacitive pressure sensor.
The pressure detection device has the advantages that the pressure detection device comprises the capacitive pressure sensor, and has the same effect as that of the capacitive pressure sensor, namely, the high sensitivity can be maintained while the high linearity is considered, namely, the sensitivity and the linear measurement range of the capacitive pressure sensor can be simultaneously improved, so that the performance of the capacitive pressure sensor is obviously improved.
Detailed Description
For the purpose of making the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention more apparent, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is apparent that the described embodiments are some embodiments of the present invention, but not all embodiments of the present invention. All other embodiments, which can be made by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the invention without making any inventive effort, are intended to be within the scope of the invention.
Embodiments of the present invention are described below with reference to fig. 1 to 8.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, in one aspect, as shown in fig. 1, there is provided a capacitive pressure sensor mainly including a fixed electrode layer 1, an insulating layer 2, and a variable electrode layer 3. The insulating layer 2 is arranged at the upper end of the fixed electrode layer 1, and a groove is formed in the upper surface of the insulating layer 2. The variable electrode layer 3 seals the notch of the groove and forms a seal cavity 4, and the fixed electrode layer 1 and the variable electrode layer 3 form a variable capacitance. The response of the variable electrode layer 3 and the sealing cavity 4 to the air pressure is determined according to the sensitivity of the unit area of the capacitive pressure sensor, the deformation degree of the variable electrode layer 3 is determined according to the response of the variable electrode layer 3 and the sealing cavity 4 to the air pressure, the capacitance reading change of the capacitive pressure sensor is determined according to the deformation degree of the variable electrode layer 3, and the air pressure value of the capacitive pressure sensor is determined according to the capacitance reading change.
The calculation formula of the unit area sensitivity S of the capacitive pressure sensor is as follows, according to the definition of the unit area sensitivity S:
Wherein, C is capacitance, P o is external air pressure, omega c is the displacement of the center point of the variable electrode layer 3, A is the area of the variable electrode layer 3, M C is the sensitivity of the capacitance C in unit area along with the displacement omega c of the center point of the variable electrode layer 3, K m is the equivalent spring coefficient of the variable electrode layer, and K P is the equivalent spring coefficient of the sealing cavity.
From the above formula, the sensitivity per unit area S is mainly related to M C、Km and K P.
The ratio of the equivalent spring coefficient K P of the sealing cavity to the equivalent spring coefficient K m of the variable electrode layer is larger than or equal to a preset value, so that the performance of the capacitive pressure sensor is dominated by the equivalent spring coefficient K P of the sealing cavity.
According to the capacitive pressure sensor provided by the embodiment of the invention, the fixed electrode layer 1 and the variable electrode layer 3 form a variable capacitor, and after the external air pressure changes, the variable electrode layer 3 is stressed to deform under the difference between the external air pressure and the air pressure in the sealing cavity 4. And determining the response of the variable electrode layer 3 and the sealing cavity 4 to the air pressure according to the sensitivity of the unit area, calculating the deformation degree of the variable electrode layer 3 according to the response of the variable electrode layer 3 and the sealing cavity 4 to the air pressure, calculating the capacitance reading change according to the deformation degree of the variable electrode layer 3, and finally obtaining the air pressure value according to the capacitance reading change. The change of capacitance with the displacement of the variable electrode layer 3 is nonlinear, and the change of the displacement of the variable electrode layer 3 with the external air pressure is also nonlinear. Under the condition that K P/Km is larger than a preset value, the performance of the capacitive pressure sensor is dominated by the equivalent spring coefficient K P of the sealing cavity, and the nonlinearity of the change of the capacitance along with the displacement of the variable electrode layer 3 and the nonlinearity of the change of the displacement of the variable electrode layer 3 along with the external air pressure can be mutually offset, so that the embodiment of the invention can keep high sensitivity and simultaneously give consideration to high linearity, namely, the sensitivity and the linear measurement range of the capacitive pressure sensor can be simultaneously improved, and the performance of the capacitive pressure sensor is obviously improved.
The K P/Km <0.5 of the traditional capacitive pressure sensor, the performance of the capacitive pressure sensor is mainly determined by the equivalent spring coefficient K m of the variable electrode layer. The performance of the capacitive pressure sensor provided by the embodiment of the invention is mainly determined by the equivalent spring coefficient K P of the sealing cavity.
It should be noted that, the preset value of K P/Km may be selected and set according to actual needs, so long as the performance of the capacitive pressure sensor is mainly determined by the equivalent spring coefficient K P of the seal cavity.
In addition, the embodiment of the present invention does not limit the structures of the fixed electrode layer 1 and the insulating layer 2, and any existing structure may be selected as needed.
In one embodiment, as shown in fig. 1, the bottom of the insulating layer 2 is disposed on the upper surface of the fixed electrode layer 1, the fixed electrode layer 1 may be a conductive substrate, the variable electrode layer 3 may be a conductive film, and the conductive substrate and the conductive film are connected to a circuit board through leads 5, respectively, to form a variable capacitor. The leads 5 may be disposed on the top surface of the conductive substrate. The conductive film is parallel to the bottom surface of the groove and has sealing property. The actual ambient air pressure value can be calculated by detecting the change of the variable capacitance. The change in the variable capacitance is determined by the degree of deformation of the variable electrode layer 3, and the degree of deformation of the variable electrode layer 3 is determined by the response of the variable electrode layer 3 and the seal chamber 4 to the air pressure. Providing the insulating layer 2 can prevent the fixed electrode layer 1 and the variable electrode layer 3 from being directly connected to form a short circuit.
In other embodiments, as shown in fig. 5 and 6, the leads 5 of the conductive substrate may also be disposed on the front or back or bottom surface thereof.
In one embodiment, as shown in fig. 7, the fixed electrode layer 1 may also be provided inside the insulating layer 2 and at the lower end of the groove. At this time, the substrate is not employed as the fixed electrode layer 1. The insulating layer 2 is divided into an upper half section forming a groove, and a lower half section mounting the fixed electrode layer 1.
In one embodiment, as shown in fig. 8, the variable electrode layer 3 may be provided separately, i.e., the membrane itself is not conductive, and a layer of conductive material is provided on the membrane, and the conductive material may be provided on the upper surface, the lower surface, or the inside of the membrane.
Of course, the structures of the fixed electrode layer 1 and the variable electrode layer 3 may be selected in other forms as required, and in this regard, the embodiments of the present invention are not listed.
In one embodiment, the variable electrode layer 3 is a regular shape, the regular shape including one of a circle, an ellipse, a polygon, wherein the polygon includes a triangle, a square, and the like.
Further, in one embodiment, the variable electrode layer 3 is a circular conductive membrane, and the seal cavity 4 is a cylindrical cavity. Compared with other shapes, the variable electrode layer 3 is arranged into the disc-shaped conductive film, the displacement is larger under the action of the same pressure, the pressure of the air pressure difference to the variable electrode layer 3 can be evenly distributed, and the accuracy and the stability of the capacitive pressure sensor can be improved.
In particular, the calculation of the equivalent spring coefficient K m of the variable electrode layer requires consideration of the linear and nonlinear sections of the deformation of the variable electrode layer 3, i.e., K m= Km1+ Km2, in particular,
Therefore, the calculation formula of the equivalent spring coefficient K m of the variable electrode layer is as follows:
Where E is young's modulus of the variable electrode layer 3, h is thickness of the variable electrode layer 3, R is radius of the variable electrode layer 3, σ o is prestress of the variable electrode layer 3, and v is poisson's ratio of the variable electrode layer 3. Since the young's modulus E, the prestress σ o, and the poisson ratio v of the variable electrode layer 3 are constant, the variable electrode layer equivalent spring coefficient K m can be adjusted by adjusting the radius R of the variable electrode layer 3 and the thickness h of the variable electrode layer 3. Specifically, increasing the diameter-thickness ratio D/h of the variable electrode layer 3 can decrease the variable electrode layer equivalent spring coefficient K m.
Further, in one embodiment, the calculation formula of the equivalent spring constant K P of the seal cavity is as follows:
Where g is the depth of the capsule 4 and P i is the initial pressure within the capsule 4. By adjusting the depth g of the seal cavity 4 and the initial pressure P i within the seal cavity 4, the seal cavity equivalent spring rate K P can be changed. To reduce the cost of use, the initial pressure P i within the sealed chamber 4 is typically within a certain range. Thus, the cavity equivalent spring rate K P can be raised by lowering the depth g of the cavity 4.
As can be seen from the calculation formulas of K m and K P, increasing the radius R of the variable electrode layer 3, decreasing the thickness h of the variable electrode layer 3, and decreasing the depth g of the seal cavity 4 can increase K P/Km, so that the sensitivity and the linear measurement range of the capacitive pressure sensor are determined by the equivalent spring coefficient K m of the variable electrode layer and are adjusted to be the equivalent spring coefficient K P of the seal cavity.
Illustratively, as shown in fig. 2, the depth g of the seal cavity 4 is set to 100 nm,300 nm, and 500 nm, respectively, and it is understood that the larger the diameter-thickness ratio D/h of the variable electrode layer 3 is, the smaller the depth g of the seal cavity 4 is, and the larger K P/Km is. In the case where K P/Km increases above 5, the performance of the capacitive pressure sensor is primarily determined by the seal cavity equivalent spring coefficient K P.
In one embodiment, the variable electrode layer 3 is a square conductive membrane, and the calculation formula of the equivalent spring coefficient K m of the variable electrode layer is as follows:
Where E is young's modulus of the variable electrode layer 3, h is thickness of the variable electrode layer 3, R is radius of the variable electrode layer 3, σ o is prestress of the variable electrode layer 3, v is poisson's ratio of the variable electrode layer 3, B 1 and B 2 are dimensionless constants, L is side length of the variable electrode layer 3, f (v) is a geometric function, and f (v) is set to 0.271×v in relation to poisson's ratio.
It can be understood that the variable electrode layer 3 can also select other regular shapes according to the requirement, and the corresponding calculation formula can be calculated according to the specific shape, so that the embodiments of the present invention are not listed.
For convenience of description, the embodiment of the present invention will be described taking the example in which the variable electrode layer 3 uses a circular conductive membrane.
In one embodiment, the sensitivity M C of the capacitance C as a function of the center point displacement ω c of the variable electrode layer 3 is determined by the positional change between the fixed electrode layer 1 and the variable electrode layer 3. According to the calculation formula of the capacitance between parallel plates, the sensitivity M C of the capacitance C according to the center point displacement ω c of the variable electrode layer 3 is calculated as follows:
Wherein L c is the equivalent distance between the fixed electrode layer 1 and the variable electrode layer 3, ε 0 is the vacuum dielectric constant.
Further, the calculation formula of the equivalent distance L c between the fixed electrode layer 1 and the variable electrode layer 3 is as follows:
Where g is the depth of the sealed cavity 4, t is the thickness of the insulating layer 2 at the bottom of the sealed cavity 4, ε g is the relative dielectric constant of the sealed cavity 4, ε r is the relative dielectric constant of the insulating layer 2.
As can be seen from the calculation formulas of M C and L c, in order to further cancel the nonlinearity of the change in capacitance with the displacement of the variable electrode layer 3 and the nonlinearity of the change in the displacement of the variable electrode layer 3 with the external air pressure, a suitable thickness t of the insulating layer 2 needs to be selected.
As shown in fig. 3, taking the diameter D of the variable electrode layer 3 as 200 um, the thickness h of the variable electrode layer 3 as 1.7 um, and the initial pressure P i in the sealed cavity 4 as 101 kPa as an example. In the range of 0-180 kPa, when the depth g of the capsule 4 is 2000 um, K P/Km is 0.14, as indicated by the dashed line M c/Km in FIG. 3. When the depth g of the seal cavity 4 drops to 50 um, K P/Km is 6.6, as shown by the dash-dot line M c/Kp in fig. 3. When the depth g of the sealed cavity 4 is reduced to 50 um and the thickness t of the insulating layer 2 is increased such that the equivalent distance L c between the fixed electrode layer 1 and the variable electrode layer 3 is 90 nm, K P/Km is still 6.6 but is able to maintain a substantially linear height, as indicated by the dashed line M c-end/Kp in fig. 3.
In one embodiment, the lower the nonlinearity of the capacitive pressure sensor, the wider the linear measurement range, and the calculation formula for the nonlinearity δ of the capacitive pressure sensor is as follows:
where Δc max is the maximum value of the difference between the measured value of capacitance C and the linear fit value, and C FS is the full scale capacitance change.
The embodiment of the invention is effective for variable electrode layers 3 with various sizes by increasing K P/Km and adjusting L c to synchronously increase sensitivity and linear measurement range. Taking a conductive film with poisson ratio v of 0.4, prestress σ o of 150 Mpa, young's modulus E of 100 Gpa as an example, initial pressure P i in sealed cavity 4 is 101 kPa. The correspondence between Sensitivity (Sensitivity) and nonlinearity (Nonlinearity) is shown in fig. 4.
Example 1:
The diameter D of the variable electrode layer 3 is 50 um, the thickness h of the variable electrode layer 3 is 17 nm, the depth g of the sealed cavity 4 is 300 nm, namely, K P/Km >5 can be ensured, and the equivalent distance L c between the fixed electrode layer 1 and the variable electrode layer 3 is set to 450 nm.
Example 2:
The diameter D of the variable electrode layer 3 is 85 um, the thickness h of the variable electrode layer 3 is 80 nm, the depth g of the sealed cavity 4 is 200 nm, so that K P/Km >5 can be ensured, and the equivalent distance L c between the fixed electrode layer 1 and the variable electrode layer 3 is set to 300 nm.
Example 3:
the diameter D of the variable electrode layer 3 is 80 um, the thickness h of the variable electrode layer 3 is 40 nm, the depth g of the sealed cavity 4 is 350 nm, so that K P/Km >5 can be ensured, and the equivalent distance L c between the fixed electrode layer 1 and the variable electrode layer 3 is set to 500 nm.
The capacitive pressure sensor in this embodiment may also include other necessary modules or components, such as a housing, wires, etc., for the basic function of the capacitive pressure sensor. It should be noted that any suitable existing configuration may be selected for the other necessary modules or components included in the capacitive pressure sensor. For clarity and brevity, the technical solutions provided by the present embodiments will not be repeated here, and the drawings in the description are correspondingly simplified. It will be understood that the embodiments of the invention are not limited in scope thereby.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, in another aspect, there is also provided a pressure detecting apparatus including a capacitive pressure sensor.
Because the pressure detection equipment comprises the capacitive pressure sensor, the pressure detection equipment has the same effect as the capacitive pressure sensor, namely, the high sensitivity can be maintained and the high linearity can be realized, namely, the sensitivity and the linear measurement range of the capacitive pressure sensor can be simultaneously improved, so that the performance of the capacitive pressure sensor is obviously improved.
Specifically, after the pressure detection device detects the air pressure change through the capacitive pressure sensor, the height of the pressure detection device can be determined according to the air pressure value. Thus, pressure detection devices include, but are not limited to, mobile devices, indoor navigation devices, altitude location devices, industrial air pressure monitoring devices, and the like.
Taking mobile equipment as a bracelet as an example, under the scene of outdoor exercises, the real-time air pressure of the environment where a user is can be detected through a capacitive pressure sensor in the bracelet.
Taking an industrial gas pressure monitoring device as an example, when industrial production needs to be performed using gas pressure in a specified concentration range, a capacitive pressure sensor may be used to detect the concentration of gas applied by the industrial device.
Although embodiments of the present invention have been described in connection with the accompanying drawings, various modifications and variations may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, and such modifications and variations fall within the scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.