Solid state force transducer and method of making same

Abstract From the Canadian patent

Solid state folded leaf spring force transducers are fabricated by batch photolithographic and etching techniques from a monocrystalline material such as silicon. The folded leaf spring structure includes elongated gaps separating adjacent leaf spring leg portions, such elongated gaps being oriented parallel to a crystallographic axis of the monocrystalline material. In a preferred embodiment the monocrystalline material is of diamond cubic type and the leaf spring gaps extend in mutually orthogonal directions parallel to the <01?> and <o??> crystallographic axes respectively. In a preferred method of fabricating the spring structure the structure is etched from a monocrystalline wafer by …