Wafer bonded CMUT technology utilizing a Poly-Silicon-on-Insulator wafer

This paper presents a fabrication process of a Poly-Silicon-On-Insulator (PSOI) wafer that can be used as an alternative to conventional Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) wafers for fabrication of Capacitative Micromachined Ultrasound Transducers (CMUT). The fabrication of PSOI wafers does, unlike the conventional SOI fabrication, not involve any bonding steps. A batch of PSOI wafers having a 400 nm BOX layer and a 2.6 μm ± 0.04 μm (1σ) device layer is fabricated and characterized. A surface roughness of 0.47 nm is measured for the PSOI device layer, and successful fusion bonds (direct bonds) are demonstrated between PSOI wafers and oxidized silicon wafers. A wafer-bonded CMUT using a PSOI wafer is fabricated and electrically characterized, and the expected CMUT performance is observed. Impedance spectra are demonstrated at five different DC biases, the expected spring softening effect is observed when the magnitude of the DC bias is increased.