Optimization of the mass sensitivity of wafer bonded resonant gravimetric capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs) is presented. Gas phase sensors based on resonant gravimetric CMUTs have previously been demonstrated. An important figure of merit of these sensors is the sensitivity which, for typical CMUT geometries, is increased by decreasing the radius of the CMUT cell. This paper investigates how to minimize the radius of CMUT cells fabricated using the wafer bonding process. The design and process parameters affecting the radius of the CMUT and hereby the sensitivity are studied through numerical simulations and atomic force microscopy measurements. An excellent fit was obtained between the simulations and measured profiles with a low relative error of ≤ 5%, thus validating the simulation model. Two types of CMUTs are designed and fabricated using the design and process rules determined herein, with experimentally determined mass sensitivities of 0.46 Hz/ag and 0.44 Hz/ag, respectively. The two CMUT devices have cavities made using the local oxidation of silicon (LOCOS) and reactive ion etching (RIE) process. For the LOCOS process, it was found that the smallest radius can be obtained by choosing a Si 3 N 4 oxidation mask and lowering the pad SiO 2 thickness, vacuum gap height, and Si bump height. For the RIE process, the vertical dimensions do not influence the horizontal dimensions and consequently, equivalent rules do not exist.

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The detection of phenylacetone is of interest as it is a common precursor for the synthesis of (meth)amphetamine. Resonant gravimetric sensors can be used to detect the mass and hereby the concentration of a gas while colorimetric arrays typically have an exceptional selectivity to the target analyte if the right colorimetric dyes are chosen. We present a sensor system consisting of a Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer (CMUT) and a colorimetric array for detection of phenylacetone. The CMUT is used as a resonant gravimetric gas sensor where the resonance frequency shift due to mass loading of the plate. A single Local Oxidation of Silicon (LOCOS) step was used to define the cavities which were sealed with a Si3N4 plate with a thickness of 100 nm, resulting in a resonance frequency of 38.8 MHz and a theoretical mass sensitivity of 28.3 zg Hz•µm 2. The CMUTs were functionalized with the same dyes used to fabricate colorimetric arrays. While both the CMUTs and the colorimetric arrays showed selectivity to phenylacetone, the best selectivity was achieved by the colorimetric array. Furthermore, the mass of the phenylacetone was found as a function of time. Thus, the combination of the colorimetric array and the CMUT results in a good selectivity and a quantitative value for the mass.

We present an anode design for silicon-based direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) applications. Platinum was deposited conformally by atomic layer deposition (ALD) onto vertically aligned, nitrogendoped multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) grown on porous silicon. The deposition was carried out in a top-flow ALD reactor at 250°C, using MeCpPtMe 3 and O 2 as precursors. The anode was tested for the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) in a three-electrode electrochemical set-up and it showed improved catalytic activity compared to a reference sample of Pt deposited on flat Si. It is demonstrated that ALD could be a MEMS compatible deposition technique for Si-based fuel cell applications.