Development of a novel Fabry-Perot pressure microsensor

A new Fabry-Perot cavity-based pressure sensor with a novel single deeply corrugated diaphragm (SDCD) is presented. The SDCD serving as the moving mirror of the proposed Fabry-Perot cavity consists of a flat bottom-region that is suspended all around with free-sidewalls. The flexible suspending sidewalls have both buffering and stress-releasing effects, thereby enhancing the degree of flatness of the moving mirror under pressurized deflection, and reducing the temperature dependence caused by the mismatch in coefficients of thermal expansions (CTEs) among materials. Both analytical and experimental results have shown that both the signal-averaging effect and cross-sensitivity to temperature with diaphragm-type Fabry-Perot cavity-based pressure sensors, can be alleviated by the proposed technique. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.