Publications

The development of integrated chemical microsensors in GaAs

Casalnuovo, Stephen A.; Frye-Mason, Gregory C.; Heller, Edwin J.; Hietala, Vincent M.; Baca, A.G.

Monolithic, integrated acoustic wave chemical microsensors are being developed on gallium arsenide (GaAs) substrates. With this approach, arrays of microsensors and the high frequency electronic components needed to operate them reside on a single substrate, increasing the range of detectable analytes, reducing overall system size, minimizing systematic errors, and simplifying assembly and packaging. GaAs is employed because it is both piezoelectric, a property required to produce the acoustic wave devices, and a semiconductor with a mature microelectronics fabrication technology. Many aspects of integrated GaAs chemical sensors have been investigated, including: surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors; monolithic SAW delay line oscillators; GaAs application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) for sensor operation; a hybrid sensor array utilizing these ASICS; and the fully monolithic, integrated SAW array. Details of the design, fabrication, and performance of these devices are discussed. In addition, the ability to produce heteroepitaxial layers of GaAs and aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) makes possible micromachined membrane sensors with improved sensitivity compared to conventional SAW sensors. Micromachining techniques for fabricating flexural plate wave (FPW) and thickness shear mode (TSM) microsensors on thin GaAs membranes are presented and GaAs FPW delay line and TSM resonator performance is described.