Design and optimization of an ultra thin flexible capacitive humidity sensor

In this paper we present the design and fabrication of a humidity sensor on ultra thin (8 mu m) flexible polyimide substrate. The ultra thin flexible substrate can be preserved also when a read-out electronic interface is integrated by using Polycrystalline Silicon Thin Film Transistors technology. The sensor device is a capacitor where a thin layer of [bis(benzo cyclobutene)] is used as a dielectric sensitive material between two metal electrodes. The electrode layout has been designed with the aid of numerical simulations in order to optimize the sensor performances. The fabricated sensor has shown sensitivity to relative humidity of 0.38%/RH% and a linearity of 0.996 in the range of 10-90 RH%. Furthermore, measurements regarding the sensor response time, different bending and bias voltage effects have been performed. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.