Potential of silicon nanowires structures as nanoscale piezoresistors in mechanical sensors

This paper presents the design of a single square millimeter 3-axial accelerometer for bio-mechanics measurements that exploit the potential of silicon nanowires structures as nanoscale piezoresistors. The main requirements of this application are miniaturization and high measurement accuracy. Nanowires as nanoscale piezoresistive devices have been chosen as sensing element, due to their high sensitivity and miniaturization achievable. By exploiting the electro-mechanical features of nanowires as nanoscale piezoresistors, the nominal sensor sensitivity is overall boosted by more than 30 times. This approach allows significant higher accuracy and resolution with smaller sensing element in comparison with conventional devices without the need of signal amplification