Fabrication of the Acceleration Sensor Body of Glass by Powder Blasting

Acceleration sensors have widely been used in the various fields of industry. In recent years, micromachining accelerometers have been developed and commercialized by the micromachining technique or MEMS technique. Typical structure of such sensors consist of a cantilever beam and a vibrating mass fabricated on Si wafers using etching. This study investigates the feasibility of powder blasting technique for microfabrication of sensor structures made of the pyrex glass alternating the existing Si based acceleration sensor. First, as preliminary experiment, effect of blasting pressure, mass flow rate of abrasive and no. of nozzle scanning on erosion depth of pyrex and soda lime glass is studied. Then the optimal blasting conditions are chosen for pyrex sensor. Structure dimensions of designed glass sensor are 2.9mm and 0.7mm for the cantilever beam length and width and 1.7mm for the side of square mass. Mask material is from aluminium sheet of 0.5mm in thickness. Machining results showed that tolerance errors of basic dimensions of glass sensor ranged from 3um in minimum to 20um in maximum. This results imply the powder blasting can be applied for micromachining of glass acceleration sensors alternating the exiting Si based sensors.