A sensitive liquid-cantilever diaphragm for pressure sensor

An absolute pressure sensor based on liquid cantilever diaphragm is described in this paper. The diaphragm was fabricated by using liquid to bridge the gap between a piezo-resistive cantilever and the surrounding walls. Due to surface tension, the liquid filled the cantilever's gap while it did not leak through the gap. A cavity was designed under the diaphragm as a reference pressure. By choosing proper liquid and narrowing the cantilever's gap, we obtained a highly sensitive diaphragm that was able to measure absolute pressure with resolution of sub 1 Pa.