No abstract

Illis paper reports the development of a family of ultrasensitive and ultra-high-vacuum absolute capacitive pressure sensors, fabricated using the dissolved wafer process technology (DWP).One type of the sensors offers the following characteristics: full range 0-0.5 Torr, sub-pTorr resolution, 'five orders of magnitude pressure response, high stability, and the highest aspect ratio of diaphragm area to its thickness of any MEMS capacitive sensors ever reported worldwide. This novel pressure sensor is pushing the edge of the technology and is capable of operating within the pressure ranges previously monitored only by the "Cold Cathode" and "Hot Filament Ion" techniques.