Wafer-Scale Fabricated MEMS-Type Ionization Vacuum Sensors Based on Through Glass Via Technology

The letter presents a MEMS-type ionization vacuum sensor fabricated in batch on 4-in wafers based on through glass via (TGV) technology. The utilization of TGV technology enables the sensor to exhibit a compact three-layer stacked structure, where an yttrium oxide thermionic electron emitter and an ion collector are assembled in the same TGV layer. In addition to the compact dimensions of only <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$14\times {9}\times {3}.{6}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm3, the wafer-scale fabricated sensors exhibit a wide measurement range from <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${1}\times {10} ^{-{4}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> Pa to 40 Pa, an improved sensitivity of 0.019 Pa<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{-{1}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and a production yield of 94%. All these results imply the promising applications of our sensors for vacuum measurement, especially for in-situ vacuum monitoring in vacuum electronic devices.