Electrothermal Analysis of a Simple MEMS Pirani Gauge with a Lower Detection Limit

This work presents a suspended serpentine micro-Pirani gauge for the detection of vacuum levels inside a microcavity. The electrothermal analysis of the proposed design is performed to find the dynamic range using the finite element analysis (FEA) tool, COMSOL Multiphysics®. The dynamic range of the gauge is found to be 4.3 × 10 -2 Pa to 10 5 Pa whereas, the maximum sensitivity of the gauge is calculated as 97.17 mV/dec at a maximum power consumption of 27.58 μW.