336

IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 2, NO. 4, AUGUST 2002

Piezoresistive Sensors on Plastic Substrates Using

Doped Microcrystalline Silicon
Pedro Alpuim, Virginia Chu, and Joo Pedro Conde

AbstractThe piezoresistive behavior of n-type and p-type microcrystalline silicon films deposited on polyethylene terephthalate plastic substrates by hot-wire, and radio-frequency, plasmaenhanced chemical vapor deposition, at a substrate temperature
of 100 C, is studied. The crystallite size was 10 nm for hot-wire
films and 6.5 nm for radio-frequency films and the crystalline fraction varied between 50 to 80%. A four-point bending jig allowed
the application of positive and negative strains in the films. Repeated measurements of the relative changes in the resistance of the
samples during the strained condition showed reversible behavior,
with p-type microcrystalline films having positive gauge factor in
the range from 25 to 30 and n-type c-Si : H films having negative
values of gauge factor from 40 to 10. The induced strain in the
films varied in the interval between 0 and 0.3%. The films were
used in the as-deposited size (50 mm 10 mm) as sensors, utilizing
their piezoresistive properties to map the contour of an acrylic
model with the shape of an Archimedes spiral. Micron-sized devices were patterned and used to map the shape of the same model.

I. INTRODUCTION
HE piezoresistive properties of bulk doped crystalline
siliconthe change of resistance due to the application of
stresshave long been known [1] and used in the fabrication
of strain gauges and other electromechanical transducers [2],
[3]. Deposition of both intrinsic and doped microcrystalline
( c-Si : H) silicon thin films at very low substrate temperatures
150 C) allows the use of novel substrates, like inex(
pensive plastics, and has recently received great attention due to
new large area electronic applications [4][6]. The combination
of the mechanical properties of silicon films on plastic with the
electrical properties of doped c-Si : H deposited at
150 C thus appears to be a promising way to design new types
of piezoresistive sensors.
, and the
The relative electrical resistance change,
simple axial strain, , which causes that change are connected
:
. Under more general
by a gauge factor,
loading conditions and if one also takes into account the

Manuscript received January 28, 2002; revised April 16, 2002. This work was
supported by the Fundao para a Cincia e Tecnologia (FCT) through Pluriannual Contracts with UCES/ICEMS (IST) and INESC and by projects within
PRAXIS and POCTI. The associate editor coordinating the review of this paper
and approving it for publication was Prof. Klas Hjort.
P. Alpuim was with INESC Microsystems and Nanotechnologies, Lisbon,
Portugal. He is now with the Department of Physics, University of Minho,
Guimares, Portugal.
V. Chu is with INESC Microsystems and Nanotechnologies, Lisbon, Portugal.
J. P. Conde is with the Department of Materials Engineering, Instituto Superior Tcnico, Lisbon, Portugal.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2002.804037

TABLE I
PIEZORESISTANCE COEFFICIENTS OF SILICON

geometrical distortion associated with the strain, the following

expression better describes the piezoresistive effect [7]:
(1)
In (1), is the Poisson ratio, is the Youngs modulus, and
the piezoresistive coefficients relating the applied stress to the
change in resistivity. The subscripts and stand for longitudinal and transverse directions of , respectively, relative to the
direction of current flow. For doped crystalline silicon, c-Si, the
second term [in parenthesis, on the right side in (1)] dominates
and any changes of resistance due to geometrical changes [accounted by the first term in parenthesis, on the right side in (1)]
can usually be neglected. Due to the symmetry of a cubic crystal,
,
,
three independent piezoresistive coefficients, labeled
, are sufficient to predict all the piezoresistive behavior
and
in c-Si, for a given doping level and temperature [1]. For example, in a coordinate system with axes coincident with the
cubic axes, the change in resistance in direction 1 ([100]) caused
by axial stresses applied along the three coordinate directions is
given by
(2)
is the resistance under zero strain and
(
In (2),
1, 2, 3) the three components of axial stress.
and
are
the longitudinal and transverse piezoresistance coefficients, respectively. If, instead of axial, a shear stress is applied, then the
second index of the piezoresistance coefficient will be greater
than 3 (4, 5, or 6). The cubic symmetry dictates that all the
shear coefficients vanish except those with repeated indexes,
.
P-type and n-type c-Si have very different piezoresistive be-values.
havior as described by their corresponding sets of
This difference in behavior is a consequence of the differences
in silicon band structure near the top of the valence band and
the bottom of the conduction band. Under applied stress, the effect of the deformation potentials on the conduction and valence
bands [8], [9] induces changes in carrier mobility and carrier

1530-437X/02$17.00 2002 IEEE

ALPUIM et al.: PIEZORESISTIVE SENSORS ON PLASTIC SUBSTRATES

337

TABLE II
PROPERTIES OF c-Si : H FILMS DEPOSITED ON PET

concentration that are responsible for the different piezoresistive response. The piezoresistive coefficients for n-type and for
p-type silicon are listed in Table I [1].
Due to the random orientation of the crystallites in c-Si : H
films, the piezoresistive effect, if not totally absent, is expected
to be much more isotropic, and possibly weaker, than in c-Si.
,
and
, has a much higher
Since one of the coefficients
value than the others (see Table I), not all crystallites in c-Si : H
film are expected to contribute in the same way to the change in
the conductivity. Instead, those with the most favorable orientation will contribute more. In addition, grain boundaries have
in polycrystalline mathe effect of damping the crystalline
terials [10].
The piezoresistive behavior of n-type and p-type doped
c-Si : H films deposited by radio-frequency plasma-enhanced
200 C has been
CVD on Corning glass substrates at
s between 16 and 23 and 25
reported in the literature [11].
40 were obtained for p-type and for n-type films,
respectively. These results show that the sign of the dominant
piezoresistance coefficients of c-Si is preserved in highmicrocrystalline silicon.
In the present work the piezoresistive behavior of p-type and
n-type c-Si : H films deposited on plastic (polyethylene tereph100 C by radio-frequency plasma enthalate, PET) at
hanced chemical vapor deposition, RF, and by hot-wire chemical vapor deposition, HW, is studied both under tensile and
s are evaluated. Some
compressive applied stress and the
samples were then used as large-area piezoresistive sensors and
two acrylic models, one convex and the other concave, with the
, were used
edge in the shape of an Archimedes spiral
to test the ability of the sensors to map their contours. An array
of microsensors was also deposited and patterned on a PET substrate and tested on the same Archimedes spirals.
II. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES
The films were deposited using either HW or RF in an
UHV-quality system. PET substrates 0.125 mm thick were cut
in a rectangular shape of approximately 5 cm length and 2.5

cm width, and clamped to the grounded upper electrode of the

chamber, which was heated to the substrate temperature,
.
Detailed studies and optimization of the doping of c-Si : H by
100 C are published
HW and RF deposited on PET at
elsewhere [12], [13]. The film thickness was 2000 . The
structural and electrical properties of the films are summarized
is the hydrogen dilution, i.e.,
in Table II. In this table, H
the ratio of the flux of hydrogen to the total gas flux (the
gas mixture consisting of silane, hydrogen and dopant gas);
is the ratio of the flux of dopant gas to the flux
is the crystalline fraction determined by
of silane;
is the crystallite size determined
Raman spectroscopy;
is the room-temperature dark conducby X-ray diffraction;
is the activation energy of measured between
tivity and
room temperature and 100 C.
After film deposition, coplanar aluminum contacts, 6 mm
long, 1-mm apart, and approximately 1000- thick were evaporated onto the central part of the films. The parallel contacts
were deposited in a transverse direction relative to the longitudinal axis of the sample, so that the current flow between contacts and the applied stress are in the same (longitudinal) direction. Two gold wires were connected to the two Al contacts
using silver paint and provided electrical contact. The sample
was then inserted in a four-point bending jig (Fig. 1) with the
film and contacts facing up, for tensile stress, or facing down,
for compressive stress. The distance between outer and inner
loading bars was 40 and 30 mm, respectively. The force was applied by turning a wheel at the base of the jig that was connected
to a screw that raised the central pair of bars. The strain in the
films in the longitudinal direction, calculated from the theory of
pure bending of a plate to a cylindrical surface [14], which is
valid between the inner loading bars of the jig, is equal to
(3)
In (3), is the distance from the neutral plane to the plane
is the deflection of the composite at point
of the film,
(see Fig. 1), and the distance between the first and

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Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the four-point bending jig used to apply stress
(tensile in the case depicted) to the film and the contacts used for resistance
measurement. The outer loading bars are represented by circles and the inner
loading bars by the pointed edges of the movable base.

second points of the four-point bending jig (

5 mm). The
stress along the longitudinal axis, considered to be constant
,
throughout the thickness of the film, is
being the plane stress Youngs modulus of
with
the film. The resistance of the film between the two Al contacts
was measured before and after bending, in steps of 1/4 turn of
the wheel, corresponding to an increment in deflection
0.25 mm at point
. The resistance of both the p and n-type
c-Si : H samples were of the order of 100 . The measurements were repeated in several loadingunloading cycles for
each sample, first under tension and then under compression.
Some samples were then used as sensors to map the contour of two acrylic plastic test models, 15-mm thick, one concave and the other convex, with the edge shaped as an arc of an
10 cm
Archimedes spiral with polar equation
for
. The mapping in this simple case was done
by taking a measurement of the resistance of the film between
the two Al contacts, and then moving the sensor to another part
of the spiral and taking another measurement of the resistance.
This process was repeated until the entire curve was mapped.
The set of values of resistance as a function of the polar angle
of the spiral,
, obtained in this way was then transformed into values of relative resistance change,
, where
is the resistance of the undeformed film.
, the strain in the film as a funcFrom these values of
. Knowing
tion of was calculated, using
and the position of the neutral plane of the sensor,
(calculated from the thickness and Youngs moduli of film and substrate [15]), the radius of curvature, , at each of the points of
[15].
the spiral as a function of was obtained using
is known, the reconstitution of the spiral
Once the function
followed from the use of the parametric equations
and
to plot the and -positions of the points of the
curve.
Strain sensors were patterned in the clean room, consisting
of a sequence of microresistors made of p-type c-Si : H. After
thin film deposition on the plastic substrate, a row of 10 separate devices was patterned photolithographically. Each device
(schematically drawn in Fig. 2) is made of an island of doped
microcrystalline film 150- m long by 110- m wide on top of

IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 2, NO. 4, AUGUST 2002

Fig. 2. Diagram showing the typical sizes of the island and the contacts
defining the microresistors patterned in the clean room.

Fig. 3. The relative resistance change R=R as a function of longitudinal

applied strain for p-type c-Si : H films by (a) HW and (b) RF and for n-type
c-Si : H films by (c) HW and (d) RF. The slopes of the lines are the gauge
factors.

which aluminum contacts were deposited and patterned. The

gap between contacts, which defines the length of the resistors,
is 20 m. The devices were tested using the same acrylic profiles. On each piece of plastic substrate a linear row of ten sensors was fabricated. This allowed ten data points to be taken
along the surface of the model before moving the sample to
probe the next section of the spiral.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Fig. 3 shows the relative change in resistance,
, measured parallel to the strain, plotted against the applied longitu, for p-type c-Si : H films deposited by HW
dinal strain,
[Fig. 3(a)] and by RF [Fig. 3(b)] and n-type c-Si : H films deposited by HW [Fig. 3(c)] and by RF [Fig. 3(d)]. The many data
points that appear in some of the plots represent multiple measurements to confirm reproducibility. Neglecting the changes
in resistance due to geometrical reasons and since, for the particular loading conditions that are used, the transverse stress is
zero, (1) can be applied in the simpler form:

ALPUIM et al.: PIEZORESISTIVE SENSORS ON PLASTIC SUBSTRATES

.
is the slope of the straight line that is expected
from this equation. It can be seen that the data, in general, follow
in the case of
approximate straight lines, with a positive
in the case of n-type films.
p-type films and a negative
With the exception of the n-type film prepared by HW, the
were obtained from the tensile (
0) and
same values of
0) regions of the plots.
the compressive (
Microcracks are common phenomena in such mechanical
systems where a brittle, low-elongation film resides on a plastic
s are negative for
substrate, like c-Si : H on PET. Since the
n-type films, the lower slope (in absolute value) observed for
n-type HW film under tension can be attributed to the opening
of some microcracks during the first, tensile part of the cycle
or during processing. It is also possible that in this lowfilm, the cohesive forces between crystallites are weak enough,
due to a high defect concentration at the grain boundaries or to
porosity, to result in an effective Youngs modulus higher in
compression than in tension arises. As a result, an increased
, which is the absolute
absolute value of the product
, is found in compression.
value of
found for p-type films (
25 for
The values of
32 for RF) are comparable to those found in
HW and
the literature [11] for c-Si : H films deposited on glass at high
( 200 C) by RF. For n-type films, the
s, in general,
21 for RF and
40
are lower in this work (
and 10 for HW in compression and in tension, respectively)
[11]. The probthan in comparable films deposited at high
able higher porosity, and consequently higher compliance, of
c-Si : H deposited at low
could be the origin of this ob. There could also be an effect of the texserved decrease in
according to a domture of the films that would change the
inant orientation of the crystallites relative to the longitudinal
by the Youngs modulus of
axis of the sample. Dividing the
160 GPa [16]), one obtains the longitudinal piezothe film (
1315 10
Pa for
electric coefficients of the films
6 13 10
Pa for n-type films. These
p-type and
values can be compared with those for c-Si along the crystallographic directions for which they have maxima: for p-type,
93.5 10
Pa along the
directions and for n-type,
102.2 10
Pa along the
directions [7].
Fig. 4 shows the contour of the convex acrylic test model, in
the shape of an Archimedes spiral, and the experimental data
which were obtained with a n-type c-Si : H film sensor. When
the plastic substrate is attached to its curved surface, the convex
acrylic model forces the sample to bend in such a way that the
film rests in the tensile surface. The resistance is then measured
between the two parallel Al-contacts. The sample was moved
along the curved surface of the model to map the entire contour.
Each of the values of resistance, , corresponding to a given
point of the contour that was sampled, is then converted into an
position and a position as described above (Section II). The
data reproduce particularly well the shape of the contour in the
region of smaller radius of curvature. The main source of error
was caused by the small amount of random stress that the wires
put in the measurement area of the film, which decreases in importance with increasing strain. The two sets of data points correspond to two successive measurements with the same sensor.
In order to fit the data to the analytical equation that describes

339

Fig. 4. Archimedes spiral contour (solid line) mapped by an n-type

piezoresistive film, as described in the text (squares and circles), used under
tensile strain. The insert shows a photograph of the real acrylic plastic model.

the contour, the

factor was recalculated after each sequence
30.
of data points and the result was, in both cases,
The miniaturization of the piezoresistive sensor is an important issue because it can significantly increase both the precision and the resolution of the measurement. Two points should
be considered when going to small dimensions, with respect to
the purely mechanical properties of the device.
i) The smaller the active area of the device, the more protected
it is against cracking. The probability to open a first crack at a
given strain, when the volume of the film is increased from to
increases with a power law, with the exponent equal to
[17].
ii) Since the edges of the island are stress-free surfaces, the
stress builds up from zero at these points to its predicted maximum value in the interior of the island, at a characteristic distance from the edge. The use of a shear-lag model [18] to describe this process gives a characteristic length,
, for this effect, where represents thickness and the
subscripts and stand for film and substrate. For c-Si : H
with thickness 2000 on a 125- m-thick PET substrate,
20 m (
160 GPa,
6 GPa). If the two opposite sides
40 m, then the maximum
of the island are nearer than 2
stress in the film will always be lower than its predicted value,
because the stress fields from the edges will mutually interact.
Therefore, the minimum size of the island in the direction parallel to the applied strain is 100 m and the contacts should
be placed well in the center of the island.
Fig. 5 shows results obtained with a p-type c-Si : H microsensor, with an island of 150- m length by 110- m width.
The metal contacts are placed in the center of the island with
a gap of 20 m between them. The measurement was possible
only in the central part of the acrylic model. This was due to difficulties in handling the plastic substrate during the lithographic
process, which caused several cracks to open in the active area
and in the contacts during processing. The effect of compressive
stress on the cracks was to close them, allowing for current flow,

340

IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 2, NO. 4, AUGUST 2002

Fig. 5. Archimedes spiral contour (solid line) mapped by a p-type

piezoresistive microsensor used under compressive strain (squares and circles).
The insert shows a picture of one of the microresistors that make the sensor.

after a certain amount of strain was imposed to the sensor. However, when the strain became too high, the cracks propagated
and buckling of the metallic contacts occurred. Improvements
in the processing technology should allow for greatly improved
results.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
The piezoresistive property of n-type and p-type c-Si : H de100 C
posited by RF and by HW on plastic substrates at
has been demonstrated. The measurements were repeated in
several loadingunloading cycles for each sample both under
tension and under compression, showing reversible behavior.
was positive between 2532 and for
For p-type films the
n-type films it was negative between 40 and 10. An n-type
c-Si : H film was used under tensile strain to successfully map
the contour of a spiral with a continuously varying radius of
curvature. Due to the mechanical properties of a brittle film on
a plastic substrate, an optimum size range for a patterned device
was determined to be 100 m. A prototype was fabricated and
used in compressive strain to map the contour of a spiral. In conclusion, it was demonstrated that doped microcrystalline silicon
films can be used as strain-gauge sensors on plastic substrates
and could be particularly useful as shape sensors in applications
such as artificial skin and smart textiles.

[4] C. S. Yang, L. L. Smith, C. B. Arthur, and G. N. Parsons, Stability

of low-temperarure amorphous silicon thin film transistors formed on
glass and transparent plastic substrates, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B, vol. 18,
p. 683, 2000.
[5] M. Boucinha, P. Brogueira, V. Chu, and J. P. Conde, Amorphous silicon
air-gap resonators on large area substrates, Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 77, p.
907, 2000.
[6] V. Lumelsky, M. S. Shur, and S. Wagner, Sensitive skin, IEEE Sensors
J., vol. 1, pp. 4151, June 2001.
[7] M. Elwenspoek and R. Wiegerink, Mechanical Microsensors. New
York: Springer, 2001, p. 87.
[8] M. V. Fischetti and S. E. Laux, Band structure, deformation potentials,
and carrier mobility in strained Si, Ge, and SiGe alloys, J. Appl. Phys.,
vol. 80, p. 2234, 1996.
[9] I. Goroff and L. Kleinman, Deformation Potentials in Silicon. III. Effects of a general strain on conduction and valence levels, Phys. Rev.,
vol. 132, p. 1080, 1961.
[10] L. Fang, W. L. Wang, P. D. Ding, K. J. Liao, and J. Wang, Study on
the piezoresistive effect of crystalline and polycrystalline diamond under
uniaxial strains, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 86, p. 5185, 1999.
[11] S. Nishida, M. Konagai, and K. Takahashi, Piezoresistive effect
of hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon prepared by plasma- and
photo-chemical vapor deposition, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., vol. 25, p. 17,
1986.
[12] P. Alpuim, V. Chu, and J. P. Conde, Doping of amorphous and microcrystalline silicon films by hot-wire CVD and RF-PECVD at low
substrate temperatures on plastic substrates, in Proc. Mater. Res. Soc.
Symp., vol. 609, 2000, p. A22.6.1.
, Doping of amorphous and microcrystalline silicon films
[13]
deposited at low substrate temperatures by hot-wire chemical vapor
deposition, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A, vol. 19, p. 2328, 2001.
[14] S. P. Timoshenko and J. N. Goodier, Theory of Elasticity, 3rd
ed. Singapore: McGraw-Hill, 1970, pp. 288290.
[15] S. P. Timoshenko, Strength of Materials. Malabar, FL: Krieger, 1958,
p. 93, 96, 218.
[16] N. Maluf, An Introduction to Microelectromechanical Systems Engineering. Norwood, MA: Artech House, 2000, p. 17.
[17] R. W. Davidge, Mechanical Behavior of Ceramics. Cambridge, U.K.:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1980.
[18] P. H. Wojciechowski and M. S. Mendolia, On the multiple fracture of
low-elongation thin films deposited on high-elongation substrates, J.
Vac. Sci. Technol. A, vol. 7, p. 1282, 1989.

Pedro Alpuim received the teacher of physics and

chemistry and the M.A. degrees in 1990 and 1995,
respectively, both from the University of Minho
(UM), Braga, Portugal. He is currently pursuing
the Ph.D. degree in silicon-based thin films for
large-area electronics at INESC Microsystems and
Nanotechnologies, Lisbon, Portugal. He is currently
writing his Ph.D. thesis on a-Si : H and c-Si : H thin
films and electronic devices deposited on plastic by
chemical vapor deposition techniques at very low
substrate temperatures ( 100 C).
He taught at the high school level and assisted teaching at UM while working
on his M.A. thesis on mechanical properties of thin films for energy applications.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank J. Gaspar (IST/INESC) for help with the
design of the spirals and related calculations and J. Faustino
(INESC) for wire bonding. P. Alpuim thanks the Physics Department of the University of Minho for a leave of absence.
REFERENCES
[1] C. S. Smith, Piezoresistance effect in germanium and silicon, Phys.
Rev., vol. 94, p. 42, 1954.
[2] W. G. Pfann and R. N. Thurston, Semiconducting stress transducers
utilizing the transverse and shear piezoresistance effects, J. Appl. Phys.,
vol. 32, p. 2008, 1961.
[3] O. N. Tufte, P. W. Chapman, and D. Long, Silicon diffused-element
piezoresistive diaphragms, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 33, p. 3322, 1962.

Virginia Chu received the Ph.D. degree in electrical

engineering in 1989 from Princeton University,
Princeton, NJ.
After receiving the Ph.D. degree, she did a
one-year post-doctoral stay at LPICM, Ecole
Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France, where she worked
with in-situ ellipsometry for interface studies of
compositional multilayer structures involving
amorphous semiconductors. Since 1990, she has
been part of the Research Staff of INESC, Lisbon,
Portugal, where she is co-responsible for the large
area electronics research group and is Co-Director of INESC Microsystems and
Nanotechnologies. Her present research interests include thin-film microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) for sensors and actuators, thin-film transistors
for large-area electronics applications, electronics on plastic substrates, and
integration of thin-film technology to biological applications.

ALPUIM et al.: PIEZORESISTIVE SENSORS ON PLASTIC SUBSTRATES

Joo Pedro Conde received the Ph.D. degree in

electrical engineering from Princeton University,
Princeton, NJ, in 1989. His dissertation topic
involved the study of the optoelectronic properties of
amorphous siliconsilicon germanium multilayers.
Between 1989 and 1990, he was an IBM Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yorktown Heights, NY, where he developed a low temperature process for the deposition of amorphous silicon. Since 1990, he has been
with the Instituto Superior Tecnico, where he was an
Assistant Professor in the Physics Department until
1996, and where he is presently an Associate Professor in the Department of
Materials Engineering. He is co-responsible for the large-area electronics research group of INESC Microsystems and Nanotechnologies, Lisbon, Portugal.
His current research interests include novel thin film devices such as thin film
MEMS and DNA arrays, low-temperature deposition of amorphous and microcrystalline semiconductors and electronic devices on plastic, and the development of new chemical vapor deposition techniques.

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