Capacitive flexible pressure sensor: microfabrication process and experimental characterization

Kapton-based flexible pressure sensor arrays are fabricated using a new technology of film transfer. The sensors are dedicated to the non-invasive measurement of pressure/force in robotic, sport and medical applications. The sensors are of a capacitive type, and composed of two millimetric copper electrodes, separated by a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) deformable dielectric layer. On the flexible arrays, a very small curvature radius is possible without any damage to the sensors. The realized sensors are characterized in terms of fabrication quality. The inhomogeneity of the load free capacitances obtained in the same array is ±7 %. The fabrication process, which requires 14 fabrication steps, is accurate and reproducible: a 100 % transfer yield was obtained for the fabrication of 5 wafers gathering 4 sensor arrays each (215 elementary sensors). In the preliminary electro-mechanical characterization, a sensor (with a PDMS dielectric layer of 660 μm thickness and a free load capacitance of 480 fF) undergoes a capacitance change of 17 % under a 300 kPa normal stress.