阅读说明：本技术 一种光子灵敏传感芯片 (Photon sensitive sensing chip ) 是由 周炆杰 刘晓海 于 2020-07-02 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明公开了一种光子灵敏传感芯片,其包括机械响应结构,用于响应外界机械信号变化并且根据外界机械信号变化产生相应的形态变化；光子敏感结构,用于根据所述机械响应结构中的形态变化相应地改变光子物理量；所述机械响应结构和所述光子敏感结构之间相互联结；所述机械响应结构和所述光子敏感结构通过芯片加工工艺制作在同一硅基材料之上。通过设置机械响应结构以及光子敏感结构在同一硅基材料上,通过响应外界机械信号的变化相应地改变光子物理量,能够提高对外界的灵敏度,同时根据本申请的技术方案形成的传感芯片结构简单,便于多领域的应用。(The invention discloses a photon sensitive sensing chip, which comprises a mechanical response structure, a sensor and a control circuit, wherein the mechanical response structure is used for responding to the change of an external mechanical signal and generating corresponding form change according to the change of the external mechanical signal; a photon sensitive structure for correspondingly changing photon physical quantities according to morphological changes in the mechanical responsive structure; the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure are mutually connected; the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure are manufactured on the same silicon-based material through a chip processing technology. Through setting up mechanical response structure and photon sensitive structure on same silica-based material, change through responding to external mechanical signal's change and change photon physical quantity correspondingly, can improve sensitivity to the external world, the sensor chip simple structure who forms according to the technical scheme of this application simultaneously, the multi-domain application of being convenient for.)

1. A photon sensitive sensing chip is characterized by comprising

The mechanical response structure (20) is used for responding to the external mechanical signal change and generating corresponding form change according to the external mechanical signal change;

a photon-sensitive structure (30) for correspondingly varying a photon physical quantity in accordance with a morphological change in the mechanically responsive structure (20);

the change of the shape of the mechanical response structure (20) and the change of the photon physical quantity of the photon sensitive structure (30) are physically connected through a specific sensing mechanism;

the mechanical response structure (20) and the photon sensitive structure (30) are manufactured on the same silicon-based material (10) through a chip processing technology.

2. The photon-sensitive sensor chip according to claim 1, wherein the specific sensing mechanism comprises that an angular change of the mechanical response structure (20) causes a change of photon reflection angle of the photon-sensitive structure (30), or a change of lateral or longitudinal periodic displacement of the mechanical response structure (20) causes a change of photon diffraction angle of the photon-sensitive structure (30), or a change of anisotropic refractive index of the mechanical response structure (20) causes a change of photon polarization state of the photon-sensitive structure (30).

3. The photon-sensitive sensor chip of claim 1, wherein the chip processing comprises: lithography, etching, ion implantation or doping, wafer bonding processes, sputtering or deposition processes.

4. The photon-sensitive sensor chip according to claim 1, wherein the silicon-based material comprises a second silicon-based material (2), the photon-sensitive structure (30) is formed on one side of the mechanically responsive structure (20), and both the mechanically responsive structure (20) and the photon-sensitive structure (30) are formed on the second silicon-based material (2).

5. The photon-sensitive sensor chip according to claim 4, characterized in that the mechanical response structure (20) comprises a rotor mass (4) and a cantilever structure (3) connected to the rotor mass (4).

6. The photon sensitive sensing chip according to claim 5, wherein the photon sensitive structure (30) comprises a first reflector (5), the first reflector (5) is formed on one side surface of the rotor mass (4), and the reflectivity of the first reflector (5) is greater than or equal to 95%.

7. The photon-sensitive sensor chip according to claim 6, characterized in that the second silicon-based material (2) further has a transmission window (7) formed thereon, the transmission window (7) being used for input and output of photons.

8. The photon-sensitive sensor chip according to claim 7, further comprising a first silicon-based material (1) bonded to the second silicon-based material (2), wherein the first silicon-based material (1) has a crystal plane with a (111) orientation of (110) to form an inclined plane with an inclination angle of 54.5 °, the inclined plane is formed with a second mirror surface (6), and the reflectivity of the second mirror surface (6) is greater than or equal to 95%.

9. The photon-sensitive sensor chip according to claim 8, wherein the first (5), second (6) and transmission window (7) together form an input or output path for photons.

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of chips, in particular to a photon sensitive sensing chip.

Background

The sensor is a key core component in many scientific and technological fields such as artificial intelligence, internet of things, intelligent driving, biological medicine, national defense science and technology and the like. High sensing sensitivity and comprehensive sensing types are two basic requirements of people on the sensor. Despite the wide variety of sensors, the chip-integrated sensor has rapidly replaced the conventional sensor due to its advantages of small size, low cost, good performance, low power consumption, etc.

Today, in chip-integrated sensors, it is dominating to develop nearly mature electronic sensor chip solutions. Although the electronic sensing chip has been widely used in various fields such as consumer electronics and industrial sensing, due to the limitation of the physical characteristics of electronics, the electronic sensing chip has an insurmountable bottleneck in realizing a super-high-sensitivity and comprehensive type sensor chip, and thus the electronic sensing chip cannot meet the requirements of people on a higher-end sensor chip in the next-generation information technology fields such as artificial intelligence and the internet of things.

For example, a vibration sensor is a very important basic sensor, but because of the limitation of the electronic physical effect, the vibration sensors on the market cannot be realized in a chip integration manner at present, thereby seriously affecting the development of industries such as artificial intelligence, internet of things and the like.

For another example, the accuracy of the angle sensor is important for application scenarios such as intelligent driving and inertial navigation. Although current electronic gyroscope chips have replaced traditional solid-state gyroscopes, the accuracy of the electronic gyroscope chips still does not meet practical requirements. This is for two reasons: firstly, the physical effect of the gyroscope is quite weak, and the bottleneck of the physical performance of the gyroscope cannot be overcome even if an expensive ultrasensitive electronic signal amplifying circuit is used; secondly, the angular velocity signal directly output by the gyroscope needs to be converted into an angle signal through an integrating circuit, and this inevitably leads to an error caused by static operating point drift which cannot be overcome in principle.

In order to break through the sensitivity bottleneck of electronic sensors, various other technical solutions have been tried, typically a fiber optic sensor and a photoelectric sensor.

The optical fiber sensor utilizes the sensitivity of the refractive index of the optical fiber to external signals to improve the sensitivity, for example, the precision of the optical fiber gyroscope can be more than ten times higher than that of an electronic sensor chip, but the optical fiber sensor can be realized only by needing a very long optical fiber length, so that the miniaturization and the low cost cannot be realized at all.

Although the sensitivity of optical signals is utilized by the increasing number of photosensor chips, the optical signals are directly converted into electrical signals by the photodetectors, and the optical signals are not amplified mechanically, so that the photosensor chips are not sensitive to other external signals, and the application field of the photosensors is limited.

Disclosure of Invention

In order to solve one or more of the above problems, the present application proposes a photon-sensitive sensing chip.

According to one aspect of the present application, a photon-sensitive sensor chip is provided, which includes a mechanical response structure for responding to external mechanical signal changes and generating corresponding form changes according to the external mechanical signal changes; a photon sensitive structure for correspondingly changing photon physical quantities according to morphological changes in the mechanical responsive structure; the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure are mutually connected; the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure are manufactured on the same silicon-based material through a chip processing technology. The beneficial effects are as follows: the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure are arranged on the same silicon-based material, and certain physical relation is established between the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure through a specific sensing mechanism, the photon physical quantity of the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure is changed correspondingly through responding to the change of an external mechanical signal, the sensitivity to the outside can be improved, and meanwhile, the sensor chip formed according to the technical scheme of the application has the advantages of high integration level, simple structure and convenience for application in multiple fields.

In some embodiments, the change in the form of the mechanically responsive structure is physically linked to the change in the photonic physical quantity of the photon-sensitive structure by a specific sensing mechanism. The beneficial effects are as follows: the response sensitivity to external mechanical signals is enhanced by the amplification effect of the photon sensitive structure.

In some embodiments, the specific sensing mechanism comprises that an angular change of the mechanically responsive structure causes a change in photon reflection angle of the photon-sensitive structure, or a change in lateral or longitudinal periodic displacement of the mechanically responsive structure causes a change in photon diffraction angle of the photon-sensitive structure, or a change in anisotropic refractive index of the mechanically responsive structure causes a change in photon polarization state of the photon-sensitive structure. The beneficial effects are as follows: and establishing a relation between the photon sensitive structure and the mechanical response structure through a physical law.

In some embodiments, the chip processing process comprises: lithography, etching, ion implantation or doping, wafer bonding processes, sputtering or deposition processes.

In some embodiments, the silicon-based material comprises a second silicon-based material, the photon-sensitive structure is formed on one side of the mechanically responsive structure, and both the mechanically responsive structure and the photon-sensitive structure are formed in the second silicon-based material. The beneficial effects are as follows: the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure are mutually integrated on the same chip in the form of a silicon-based chip, so that high performance, miniaturization and low cost are realized.

In some embodiments, the mechanically responsive structure includes a rotor mass and a cantilever beam structure coupled to the rotor mass. The beneficial effects are as follows: and transmitting an external mechanical signal to the rotating mass block through the cantilever beam structure, and converting an external rotation angle signal into a relative angle difference between the rotating mass block and the silicon-based material.

In some embodiments, the photon-sensitive structure is a first reflective surface formed on a side of the rotor mass, and the reflectivity of the first reflective surface is greater than or equal to 95%. The beneficial effects are as follows: converting the relative angular difference generated by the rotor mass into an angular variation of a photon signal.

In some embodiments, a transmission window is further formed in the second silicon-based material for photon input and output. The beneficial effects are as follows: so that a photon signal inputted from the outside is associated with the photon sensitive structure and the photons reflected from the photon sensitive structure are outputted to the outside.

In some embodiments, the silicon-based optical device further comprises a first silicon-based material bonded to the second silicon-based material, wherein the first silicon-based material has a crystal plane oriented in a (111) direction of a (110) crystal plane and forms an inclined plane with an inclination angle of about 54.5 degrees, the inclined plane is formed with a second mirror surface, and the reflectivity of the second mirror surface is greater than or equal to 95%. The beneficial effects are as follows: the photon angular direction is changed to facilitate the input and output of photon signals.

In some embodiments, the first mirror surface, the second mirror surface, and the transmission window collectively form an input or output path for photons.

The invention has the beneficial effects that: the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure are arranged on the same silicon-based material, and certain physical relation is established between the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure through a specific sensing mechanism, the photon physical quantity of the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure is changed correspondingly through responding to the change of an external mechanical signal, the sensitivity to the outside can be improved, and meanwhile, the sensor chip formed according to the technical scheme of the application has the advantages of high integration level, simple structure and convenience for application in multiple fields. In addition, the substrate material is silicon-based, and the raw material is rich, so that the cost can be effectively reduced, and the expansion and application are convenient.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a photon sensitive sensor chip according to the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of the photon sensitive sensor chip according to the present invention.

In the figure, a first silicon-based material 1; a second silicon-based material 2; a cantilever beam structure 3; a rotating mass 4; a first mirror surface 5; a second reflector surface 6; a transmission window 7; a silicon-based material 10; a mechanically responsive structure 20; a photon sensitive structure 30.

Detailed Description

The present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1-2 schematically illustrate a photon-sensitive sensor chip of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 1, a photon-sensitive sensor chip includes a mechanical response structure 20 for responding to an external mechanical signal change and generating a corresponding form change according to the external mechanical signal change. A photon sensitive structure 30 for correspondingly changing a photon physical quantity according to a morphological change in said mechanically responsive structure 20. The mechanically responsive structure 20 and the photon sensitive structure 30 are coupled to each other. The mechanical responsive structure 20 and the photon sensitive structure 30 are fabricated on the same silicon-based material by a chip processing process.

In some embodiments, the change in the photonic physical quantity between the mechanically responsive structure 20 and the photon sensitive structure 30 is physically linked by a specific sensing mechanism. Namely: the mechanical response structure 20 and the photon sensitive structure 30 establish a necessary physical relationship between the change of the form of the mechanical response structure 20 and the change of the photon physical quantity of the photon sensitive structure 30 through a specific sensing mechanism. Wherein, the form change can be angle change, and the photon physical quantity can be intensity, phase, frequency and polarization. Thereby, the sensitivity of the response to external mechanical signals is enhanced by the amplification effect of the photon-sensitive structure.

A particular sensing mechanism includes that the change in the angle of the mechanically responsive structure 20 causes a change in the photon reflection angle of the photon sensitive structure 30, i.e. the photon sensitive structure 30 rotates in a mirror structure causing a change in the photon reflection angle. Or a change in the lateral or longitudinal periodic displacement of the mechanically responsive structure 20 causes a change in the photon diffraction angle of the photon-sensitive structure 30, i.e. a change in the photon diffraction angle caused by the photon-sensitive structure 30 in such a way that the grating constant of the reflective or transmissive grating structure changes. Or the change of the anisotropic refractive index of the mechanically responsive structure 20 causes the photon polarization state of the photon sensitive structure 30 to change, i.e. the photon sensitive structure 30 causes the photon polarization state to change in the manner of a phase change of a two-arm interferometer structure.

In some embodiments, the chip processing process comprises: lithography, etching, ion implantation or doping, wafer bonding processes, sputtering or deposition processes.

In some embodiments, the silicon-based material comprises a second silicon-based material 2, the photon-sensitive structure 30 is formed on one side of the mechanically responsive structure 20, and both the mechanically responsive structure 20 and the photon-sensitive structure 30 are formed on the second silicon-based material 2. Therefore, the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure are mutually integrated on the same chip in the form of a silicon-based chip, so that high performance, miniaturization and low cost are realized.

In some embodiments, the mechanical response structure comprises a rotor mass 4 and a cantilever beam structure 3 connected to said rotor mass 4. Therefore, an external mechanical signal is transmitted to the rotating mass block through the cantilever beam structure, and an external rotation angle signal is converted into a relative angle difference between the rotating mass block and the silicon-based material.

In some embodiments, the photon-sensitive structure 30 is a first mirror 5, the first mirror 5 is formed on one side of the rotor mass 4, and the reflectivity of the first mirror 5 is greater than or equal to 95%. Thereby, the relative angular difference generated by the rotor mass is converted into an angular change of the photon signal.

In some embodiments, a transmission window 7 is further formed on the second silicon-based material 2, said transmission window 7 being used for input and output of photons. Thereby, a photon signal input from the outside is connected with the photon sensitive structure, and the photon reflected from the photon sensitive structure is output to the outside.

In some embodiments, the silicon substrate further comprises a first silicon-based material 1 bonded to the second silicon-based material 2, the first silicon-based material 1 has a crystal plane oriented in a (111) crystal direction of (110) to form an inclined plane with an inclination angle of about 54.5 degrees, the inclined plane is formed with a second mirror surface 6, and the reflectivity of the second mirror surface 6 is greater than or equal to 95%. Thereby, the photon angular direction is changed to facilitate the input and output of the photon signal.

In some embodiments, the first mirror surface 5, the second mirror surface 6 and the transmission window 7 together form an input or output path for photons.

For example, the specific manner of implementing the structure of the photon sensing chip shown in fig. 2 is as follows:

a first silicon based material 1, designated W1 in fig. 2, is provided with an inclined plane with an inclination angle of about 54.5 ° formed by photolithography and anisotropic wet etching in a (111) crystal orientation with a (110) crystal plane orientation, and then the inclined plane is provided with a second reflecting mirror 6 with a thickness of about 0.8 μm by sputtering or deposition, wherein the second reflecting mirror 6 has a reflectivity of more than 95%.

A second silicon-based material 2, fig. 2 is marked as W2, a rotor mass 4 structure and a middle slender cantilever beam structure 3 are formed on the second silicon-based material 2 through a deep dry etching process, wherein the dimensions of the rotor mass are 100 micrometers × 300 micrometers, and the dimensions of the cantilever beam are 50 micrometers × 5 micrometers, then a first reflecting mirror surface 5 is formed on one side surface of the rotor mass 4 through a sputtering or deposition process, and the reflectivity of the first reflecting mirror surface 5 is more than 95%.

Then, the two pieces of the first silicon-based material 1 and the second silicon-based material 2, i.e., the silicon-based wafers (W1 and W2), are aligned and bonded into a whole by a wafer bonding process to form a one-piece integrated chip.

Finally, a 10-micron transmission window 7 is formed on the upper second silicon-based material 2 through deep dry etching, and a micro convex lens is placed on the transmission window 7, wherein the convex lens can be placed through a manual pasting process or bonded with a convex lens array wafer made of another glass wafer.

The working principle of the photon sensing chip is as follows: when an external device fixed to the first silicon-based material 1 of the photon sensing chip rotates, the first silicon-based material 1 immediately rotates, however, the rotor mass 4 has rotation inertia under the support of the cantilever beam structure 3, so that a relative rotation angle is formed between the rotor mass 4 and the first silicon-based material 1, and since the first reflector surface 5 on the side surface of the rotor mass 4 is fixedly connected with the rotor mass 4, the first reflector surface 5 on the side surface of the rotor mass 4 also generates a relative rotation angle, and the resulting relative rotation angle is reflected again by the inclined second reflector surface 6 fixed on the first silicon-based material 1 and then is converted into a very sensitive spatial position change between the input photon and the output photon on the other side of the convex lens, which is easily changed by the back end, A general displacement sensitive Photodetector (PSD). The relative small-angle change between the first silicon-based material 1 and the rotor mass block 4 can be accurately inverted according to the change of the photocurrent detected by a displacement sensitive Photodetector (PSD), so that a sensitive small-angle sensor chip is realized.

The photon angle sensing chip can realize the precision that the deflection angle is 0.2 degrees when the light intensity changes by 20dB, and the whole chip can realize the measurement of the change angle of one thousandth of one degree because the precision of the photoelectric detector can reach 0.1 dB. The angular sensitivity of the optical fiber gyroscope is far higher than that of the current electronic gyroscope chip, and even the optical fiber gyroscope chip can be compared favorably with the precision of huge and expensive optical fiber gyroscope equipment.

The invention has the beneficial effects that: the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure 30 are arranged on the same silicon-based material, and the change of the form of the mechanical response structure 20 and the change of the photon physical quantity of the photon sensitive structure 30 are mutually established into necessary physical relation through a specific sensing mechanism between the mechanical response structure and the photon sensitive structure, the photon physical quantity is correspondingly changed by responding to the change of an external mechanical signal, the sensitivity to the outside can be improved, and meanwhile, the sensing chip formed according to the technical scheme of the application has a simple structure and is convenient for application in multiple fields.

What has been described above are merely some embodiments of the present invention. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made without departing from the inventive concept thereof, and these changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.