Microscale sensors based on silicon carbide and silicon

Abstract

The current paper consists of two topics related to microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The first topic reviews recent advances made in the area of silicon carbide (SiC) MEMS for applications in harsh environments. Given the unique properties of SiC, the potential and progress in the development and deployment of the harsh environment material for the fabrication and characterization of resonators and pressure sensors are described. The second topic details the motivation behind the study of biologically inspired systems and how silicon-based microscale sensors with out-of-plane structures could be integrated with analogue very-large-scale integrated circuits (VLSI) for insect-inspired robotic studies.