SILICON CARBIDE PRESSURE SENSORS AND INFRA-RED EMITTERS

A variety of harsh-environment and high demanding §applications are gaining emphasis in Micro Electro-§Mechanical System (MEMS) recently, such as locations §of high temperatures, high oxidizing/corrosive §environments, strong vibrations, and high radiation. §Limitations of Si-based micro-systems for these §applications are obvious. Package size and cost also §become substantial when the devices have to be §sufficiently isolated from the environmental §harshness. Thus, an enabling platform material has §to be sought to meet requirements from both §operation condition and cost reduction. Silicon §Carbide (SiC) is exceptionally well suited for these §applications, which has motivated author to pursue §the development of this platform material for MEMS §and, more particularly in this work, high §temperature pressure sensors and IR emitters. This §work provides details of research prototypes §developed with end-application in mind, and is §especially useful to engineering professionals in §industry and researchers in academia in micro sensor §fields, or any entrepreneur and venture capitalist §who may be considering business opportunities in the §target market addressed.