Sensors and Actuators A, 28 (1991) 83-91

83

Piezoresistance effect of silicon

Yozo Kanda
Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu 431-31 (Japan)

(Received August 28, 199D;in revised form December 17, 1990; accepted January 17, 1991)

Abstract
The principle of the piezoresistance. effect (PR) of n- and p_Si is explained by the carrier-transfer mechanism and the effective mass change. The origin of the shear piezoresistance coefficient Q in n-Si is also a stress-induced effective mass change. Agraphical representation of the PR on crystallographic orientations and the effect of impurity concentration on the PR are given for n- and p-Si. The nonlinearity of the PR is also mentioned.

1. Introduction

Recently, the piezoresistance effect in silicon [l] has been re-examined from the following viewpoints: (1) The application of this effect to various mechanical sensors has been widely extended. The reasons for this are its high sensitivity and good linearity, the superior mechanical properties of silicon, the ease of mass production by micromachining and the ease of integration in standard IC technology (which offers the possibility of on-chip signal conditioning). With the requirement by sensor engineers for higher precision sensors has come the need for a precise knowledge of the piezoresistance effect. (2) As MOS devices are scaled down to submicron dimensions, new reliability problems arise. One such problem is a new physical phenomenon considered to be related to the fact that mechanical stress is more significant for submicron device/process design. This is mainly due to several kinds of device degradation resulting from process-induced mechanical stress, which cause additional reliability problems. This trend calls for a deeper physical understanding and re-examination of VLSI reliability from the aspect of mechanical stress. This paper focuses on the former viewpoint, and discusses the work accomplished to date and newly obtained rtsults. The following

sections give a brief explanation of the principle, phenomenological description, and necessary data for design, including the effect of impurity concentration and non-linearity. 2. Principle The resistance R0 of a rectangular conductor is expressed by

where po is the resistivity and 1, w and t are the length, width and thickness of the conductor, respectively. When the resistor is stretched, the relative change in resistance is given by
AR Al ---Aw

At +P
t po

R,=7

(2)

Introducing Poissons ratio A, where Aw At -=-=-AW t

Al
1

the gauge factor G (strain sensitivity) is

G_

W&I - lE

=l+ZA+

iE!@
E

(3)

where E= AZ/I the strain. The first two terms is in eqn. (3) represent the change in resistance due to dimensional changes (dominant for

84

metal gauges), while the last term represents the change in resistivity (dominant for semiconductor gauges). In semiconductor gauges, the resistivity change is larger than the dimensional change by about a factor of 50, and the latter is therefore neglected hereafter. If a uniaxial stress T is applied along the direction of current flow, the piezoresistance ratio is given by

c0101 Q TI <---9

@----;L
(4
co101

1001

where T, is the longitudinal piezoresistance coefficient and T the longitudinal stress. The relation between rrr and G is G=Y,T, (5)

where Y,is Youngs modulus and is anisotropic with respect to crystal direction [2]_ Many-valley energy surfaces for n-type silicon in k (wave vector) space are shown in Figs. 1 and 2 [3]. Wave vector k is related to the momentum P by P =hk/2?r, where h is Plan&s constant. Silicon has three pairs of valleys. These surfaces consist of ellipsoids of revolution located on the cube axes. The effective masses of electrons in a single valley are anisotropic, m ,,> m I, and hence the mobilities in the valley are also anisotropic CL~ >k. L=cLJk =4,rJm.r,, =m,,/m,, assuming the relaxation times 7, =rll.

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the (001) valley in k-space for n-Si. Dotted lines show effect of stress. (a) corresponds to stress T, and (b) to T*

The conductivity u ( = l/p, and Apip = of n-type Si along the [lOO]direction is expressed by
-A+)

co101

(6) where e is the electron charge and n@ denotes the number of electrons in the ith valley. Without stress all the valleys are degenerate and are equally populated, n@=n =n,,/3, where no is the total number of conduction electrons. Thus, the overall conductivity is isotropic

u=(r#p,,

+n(2)/LI +n(3+LJe

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the (100) and (010) valleys in k-space for a-Z& Dotted lines show effect of stress. (a) corresponds to stress TI and (b) to Te

When a uniaxial tensile stress, T,, is applied along the [loo] axis, the band edges for the four valleys on the [OlO] and [OOl] axes go down and those on the [lOO] axes go up. The dotted lines in Figs. 1 and 2 show the positions and sizes of the surfaces for a certain energy. Electrons transfer from the high energy levels to low energy levels. Thus, there are more electrons with the large mobility ~1~ along the (100) direction. When an electric field is applied in this direction, it results in a decrease in resistivity or an increase in conductivity. Assuming that ail the eiectrons of the donor levels are exhausted with and without stress, the total number of conduction

85

electrons no does not change. The relative change of the population of the valleys on the ith axes caused by applying an arbitrarily oriented uniaxial stress T is given by [3]
A?F/n = - [(q+

where (Ye= (86.8&-5.0)/m and m is the free electron mass. Therefore, the shear piezoresistance component IQ, is given by [7] - aom II844
7T44= 1+2L (14)

l/3]

x (~k3@)(~11--4T

(8)

where L?is the shear deformation potential, kB is Boltzmanns constant, 0 is the temperature in K, si,are the compliance constants, qti) is a unit vector pointing from the centre of the Brillouin zone to the ith valley and t is a unit vector in the direction of the tension. The longitudinal piezoresistance component rll is given by [4, 51

=-

-d(l -- 22 C&l
3k,O

-L)

1+2L

(9)

Energy surfaces for p-type silicon in k space are very complex, and different from those for n-Si, as shown in Fig. 3(a). The band edge, the upper P,, state, consists of a pair of two-fold degenerate bands at k=O usually designated as the light and heavy hole bands. These energy surfaces are warped spheres. The spin-orbit split-off band, the lower Pin state, has a spherical energy surface. When a uniaxial tensile stress is applied parallel to the (111) direction, the degeneracy
k

When the electric field is applied perpendicular to the direction of the, applied stress, the conductivity is expressed by (10) and then the transverse piezoresistance component q2 is easily given by 712 - 7T11/2 = (11) Next, we consider the shear piezoresistance component q.,. When a shear stress, T,, is applied in the plane normal to the (OOl),the band edges for the (100) and (010) valleys remain unchanged as shown by arrangement (b) in Fig. 1, but the effective mass of the (001) valley changes as shown by arrangement (b) in Fig. 2 due to the special character of the conduction band edge of Si [6]. When an electric field is applied to a four-terminal device parallel to (lOO), a transverse voltage which is proportional to T6 is generated between two output electrodes due to the asymmetry of the (001) effective mass to the (100) direction. The proportionality constant defines ~~1
VA= ndT6 or p61~=mT6 (12)

(T=(#)pL +n()~,, +nC3)jq,)e

Cal
Ed?

Under a shear strain e, the electron ellipsoid perpendicular to the shear plane will be distorted and the band energy becomes [6]

_ _ _ __ J_~ s

=1 E1/2-

I
@I
+ aoh2e,kxk,,

STiESS

tt

=L
=

(13)

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of the energy surfaces in kspace for p-Si (a) without stress and (b) under stress.

86

of the valence band is lifted and two bands of prolate and oblate ellipsoidal energy surfaces with anisotropic mass parameters are formed as shown in Fig. 3(b) [8, 91. Consequently, the resistivity change comes from both the mass changes and hole transfer. The band splitting E, and the effective masses are given by [8]
d=
mlm,, mh, =

3. Phenomenological description
The first-order piezoresistance is expressed

bY APiitR= XVjktTti k, 1 (19)

ZD:s,T 3
=x+Y~,

(15)

where 7~~ is the component of the piezoresistance tensor and T,--is the component of the stress tensor. In the commonly used six-component notation, noting that subscripts 11, 22, 33, 13, 12, correspond to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, respectively, eqn. (19) is rewritten as

x - 2~~

(164

m/mzl = y1- y3(1 - 4e/A) m/mzI1= y1++a(1 - 4EM)

(20)
and the tensor is given by

(16b)

Even if the effective masses change, the density of state effective masses m13Rremain unchanged [8], and m: is approximately equal to mZZ3[lo]. Assuming that all holes of the acceptor levels are exhausted with and without stress, the total number of conduction holesp, does not change. It is also assumed that the scattering time 7;:is isotropic and rl = Q. The conductivity (J of p-type Si along (111) is
(r=

(21)
(a) Dependence on crystallographic a.&

p(l) t

+pQ)

&

7e2

Therefore, the longitudinal piezoresistance coefficient is given by [lo]

2YsD:h T1= 3y,

(17)

where A is the spin-orbit splitting energy, 0: is the deformation potential constant and the yis are the effective mass parameters. For the electric Geld perpendicular to (ill), the transverse piezoresistance coefficient is also given by rr,= - rJ2 (18)

When we refer to the crystallographic axes in the symmetry of silicon, (m3m), the fundamental piezoresistance coefficients are rll (longitudinal), 7r12 (transverse) and 7r44 (shear). Consider a general case in Cartesian coordinates of arbitrary orientation with primed quantities. Assuming a plane stress, namely neglecting the effect of stress component T;, the resistivity components pi under stress are expressed by
(224 (22t-J)

&=p,,(&T; + a&T;+ r&T:)

(224

For a more accurate description [ll] numerical analysis is needed and the contrii bution of the inter-valley scattering effect to the piezoresistance effect [4], which was neglected for brevity, should be taken into account in the above-mentioned mechanisms for both n- and p-type Si.

Here, Ti and T; are the normal stresses parallel and perpendicular to the current, respectively, and Tk is the in-plane shear stress. Among rljs in eqn. (22), three typical piezoresistance effects will be considered when stress is applied in the material. The first is the longitudinal piezoresistance coefficient, when the current and field are in the

direction of the uniaxial stress, denoted by l-I,; another is a transverse piezoresistance coefficient, when the current and field are perpendicular to the stress, denoted by l-I,; and the third is a shear piezoresistance coefficient II,. These three coefficients are given by [12, 131

IT;*

I-l, =

7rl2 + x

(n*

w12 -

744) (239

(11*~22+m1*m*2+n12n*2)

(23s)

The graphs of room-temperature l-I,, II, and IIJ2, as a function of crystal direction for orientations in the (001) plane, are shown in Figs. 4-7 [5, 141.The upper halves of the graphs represent positive values of the piezoresistance coefficient (i.e., the resistivity increases with tensile stress) and the lower halves, negative values of the piezoresistance coefficient (i.e., the resistivity decreases with tensile stress). In the graphs for l-I,, the orientation means the direction of the current. Graphs are in units of lo- Pa- based on the data of Smith [l] (shown in Table 1).

Fig. 5. Room-temperature piezoresistance coefficients in the (001) plane of p_Si (lo- Pa-).

Fig. 6. Piezoresistance coefficient &J2 in the (001) plane of n-Si (lo- Pa-).

Fig. 7. Piezoresistance coefficient a&n in the (001) plane of p-Si (lo- Pa-). (b) Impwily concentration effect The piezoresistance coefficient

lJ(N, S) with an impurity concentration N and at a temperature 0 can be rewritten in the form l-I(N, 0) =P(N, @l-I (300 K)
Fig. 4. Room-temperature piezoresistance coefficients in the (001) plane of n-Si (lo- Pa-).

(24)

where P(N, 0) is the piezoresistance factor given by

88 TABLE 1. Deformation potential constant (eV), piezoresistance components (lo- Pa-), elastic compliance constant (lo- Pa-) and mass parameters n-type P (a cm) n,, (1O-n Pa-) qz (lo- Pa-) nM (lo-* Pa-) 2, (eV) 3 (ev) D. (eV) D: (eV) D: (ev) A (cV) mllim m,im
71 Yz 73 q1

p-type 7.8 +6.6 - 1.1 + 138.1

11.7 - 102.2 +.53.4 - 13.6 -5.2 8.5

3.4 4.4 3.9 0.044 0.9161 0.1905 4.26 0.38 1.56 0.768 - 0.214 1.26

Fig. 9. Piezoresistance factor P(N,0) as a function of impurity concentration and temperature for psi.

(10-r Pa-) srz (lo- Pa-) sM (lo- Pa-)

Fig. 10. Variation of nr, in n-type Si-diffised layers with temperature and surface concentration. Concentrations are in WI-~.

resistance coefficient of a diffused layer is written as [14]

Fig. 8. Piezoresistance factor P(N, S) as a function of impurity concentration and temperature for n-Si.

The Fermi integral is a function of temperature and Fermi energy assuming that the relaxation time 7 is a function of energy E, T= TV,!? [5]. q., in n-Si is excluded from the above discussion. Of course, the resistivity also depends on the impurity concentration and temperature. Graphs of P(N, 0) are shown in Figs. 8 and 9. Sensors have usually been made by diffision since Tufte and Stelzers pioneering work [14]. Their results are shown in Figs. 10-13. The average piezo-

where x is the distance from the surface of the layer, x0 the layer thickness, and V(X) and u(x) the piezoresistance coefficient and conductivity due to the impurity distribution for a depth X. ?Yis only slightly larger than the bulk r having an impurity concentration equal to the surface concentration of the diffused layer (see Fig. 14 [15]). Conventional pressure sensors are made by p-type diffused layers. What is an optimum

L 1

-a0

-60

-10

-A_J.-1 .20

10

* .O

I 60

80

mo
SURfkcf Colitis

(krous~cu )

Fig. 11. Variation of n@ in p-type Si-diised layers with temperature and surface concentration (in cm-). The a~~p~n 7rM=39qt2has been made to obtain these values.

Fig. 14. Buik piezoresistive coefficient u& vs. impurity ~n~ntration in p-type silicon with (111) orientation and diffused cccfficients ?r{,vs. surface impurity ~~centratjon for Gaussian and erfc profiles of p-type impurities.

OS \ . b r X zi a

40 SO 20 10 0 -10 -20

lOI8

1o*

1020

102

Nr(cm-J) .r**
-80 -60 -40 -20 0 20

40

60

80

100

Fig. 15. TCR(u) and TCG@) vs. surface concentration in p-type diEused layers.

Fig. 12 Variation of the diffused-layer resistance with temperature for n-type Si layers at different surface concentrations (in crnq3}.

concentration for p-type sensors? The resistance change AR under strain Q is AR=R,(l+rr AO)G,(1+/3 A+ (27) where ar is the temperature sufficient of resistance (TCR) and p is the temperature coefficient of the gauge factor (TCG). From eqn. (27) it can be seen that firstorder temperat~e effects are removed if (28) cu,p and of p for p-type silicon are plotted as a function of surface concentration, N, in Fig. 15 [16, 171,The conditions which satisfy eqn. (28) are obtained around N,= 10 and lO**cme3. For n-type silicon, on the other hand, no such condition could be found. WI-p==0
~~~G~~l~(a~~~

A@})E

Fig. 13. Variation of the dised-layer resistance with temperature for p-type Si layers at different surface concentrations (in UII-~),

90

(c) Non-linear effect

the NL by [18] NLV, T,)

In general, the piezoresistance effect of Si has better linearity fir transducing a mechanical signal into an electrical one than other effects, However, for high-precision sensors a more detailed knowledge of the nonlinearity (NL) is required. It is convenient, from an application point of view, to define

WnJ -WV (29)

in which R(T) denotes the resistance at stress T, and T,,, the maximum applied stress. NL also represents the difference from the linearity divided by the resistance change at maximum stress. Since most pressure sensors have p-type gauges along [llO], the NL of p-Si for (110) stress is most important, and is thus shown in Fig. 16 [19]. Let us consider the PR coefficient up to second order:

COMPRESSION (MPd 4-

TENSION (MPd OdC 0:wc

-10-

A:&
MODE

(a)

LONGITUDINAL IO 3 a

are where rWAV the second-order PR components. The symmetry of the diamond structure reduces the number of independent IT@~ values to nine. The first- and second-order piezoresistance coefficients in some typical configurations are given in Table 2. Experimentally obtained second-order piezoresistance tensor components of p- and n-type Si are given in Table 3 [20, 211.

4. Discussion
-10

013OC
A:lOC
MODE

@I

TRANSVERSE

Fig. 16. Temperature dependence of the non-linearity of the piezoresistance effect of p_Si in (110) stress. Impurity surface concentration is 2~10~ cm-. (a) Longitudinal mode, (b) transverse mode.

It has long been believed that the piezoresistance effect of n-Si was completely explained by the electron transfer mechanism [4]. However, an important puzzle has remained unsolved: on the basis of the manyvalley model, the Q coefficient is shown to

TABLE 2. The first- and second-order piezoresistance coefficients in some tyPiCal configurations Direction Stress (100) (100) (110) (110)
(110)

Configuration Current (100) (010) (l!O) (110) (111) L T L T T L

PR coefficients Fist order

Tll =I2

Second order
WI1 %3

(0001)

(ru+ (mu+
7712

?r,z + WY2
r12 mw

~Ir,11+~1~+~~112+71166+41r661~~4 (ml1 + mz+ 2n12 f m66 -4%d4

m22

(111) (111)

(ii2)

(77,, +272,~5Q4)/3 (Ql+ 2W1~2+ kj~+2nlu+ W+2~~-2rr*c, -4ik,, -2T,,6)/9

(~+2~,2+2~)/3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

91 TABLE 3. Summary of the experimental second-order PR tensor components of n- and p_Si in unit of lo-* MPa-*. Carrier concentration at surface, 1 X 10 cm-. A, assumed zero: N, not measured Second-order PR tensor component Conductivity type P A A -22 A 98 A -51 44 -51 n 71 -36 -5 -35 A N N N N 2 J. J. Wortman and R. A. Evans, Youngs modulus, shear modulus, and Poissons ratio in silicon and germanium, /. Appl. Phys., 36 (1965) 153-156. 3 Y. Kanda, Effect of stress on germanium and silicon p-n junctions, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., 6 (1967) 475-486. 4 C. Herring and E. Vogt, Transport and deformationpotential theory for many valley semiconductors with anisotropic scattering, Phys. Rev., 102 (1956) 944-961. 5 Y. Kanda, A graphical representation of the piezoresistance coefficients in siliwn, IEEE Tmns. Electron
Devices, ED-29 (1982) 64-70. 6 J. C. Hensel, H. Hasegawa and M. Nakayana, Cyclotron

be zero by the electron transfer mechanism, but this is different from experimental results [l, 201.The discrepancy can be explained by the effective mass change of the valley perpendicular to the shear plane. The cross section of the effective mass changes from a circle to an ellipse. The effective mass change could be measured only by cyclotron resonance at liquid helium temperature. Now, we can see the effective mass change through the piezoresistance measurement at room temperature. From eqn. (14) n-Uis independent of temperature. This is a very novel finding, In Section 3, the author dared to show the piezoresistance data of n-S, which are rarely used, because of the possibility of making attractive complementary gauges satisfying eqn. (28). The non-linear physics of the piezoresistance effect has just begun. If the NL is an odd function of stress as shown in Fig. 16(a), the third-order term is dominant, which has not been studied yet. If the NL is an even function of stress as shown in Fig. 16(b), the second-order term plays a dominant role.

resonance in uniaxially stressed silicon. II. Nature of the covalent bond, Phys. Rev., 138 (1965) A2256238. 7 Y. Kanda and K. Suzuki, Origin of the shear piezoresistance coefficient of n-type silicon, Phys. Rev. B, 43 (1991) 67.54-6756. 8 H. Hasegawa, Theory of cyclotron resonance in strained silicon crystals, Phys. Rev., 229 (1963) 1029-1040. 9 J. C. Hensel and G. Feher, Cyclotron resonance experiments in uniaxially stressed silicon: valence band inverse mass parameters and deformation potentials, Phys. Rev., 129 (1963) 1041-1062. 10 K. Suzuki, H. Hasegawa and Y. Kanda, Origin of the linear and nonlinear piezoresistance effects in p-type silicon, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., 23 (1984) L871-L874. 11 J. T. Ienkkeri, Nonlinear effects in the piezoresistivity of p-type silicon, Phys. Status Solidi (b), 136 (1986)
373-385. 12 W. G. Pfann and R. N. Thurston, Semiconductor stress

transducers utilizing the transverse and shear piezoresistance effect, J. Appl. Phys., 32 (1961) 2008-2019. 13 Y. Kanda, Graphical representation of the piezoresistance coefficient in silicon-shear coefficient in plane, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., 26 (1987) 1031-1033. 14 0. N. Tufte and E. L. Stelzer. Piezoresistive orooerties of silicon diffused layers, i Appl. Phjx, 34 -(1963)
313-318. 15 D. R. Kerr and A. G. Milnes, Piezoresistance of diffused layers in cubic semiconductor, J. Appl. Phys., 34 (1963)

727-731. 16 Anthony D. Kurtz, ISA 22 P4-I-PAID-1967. 17 M. Shimazoe, K. Yamada and Y. Takehashi, Temperature characteristics of semiconductor strain gauges,

Ext.Abstr., 36th Autumn Meet., Jpn. Sot. Appl. Phys., Fukuokq Japan, 1975, 62, 24aD6.
18 K. Yamada, M. Nishihara, S. Shimada, M. Tanabe, M. Shimazoe and Y. Matsuoka, Nonlinearity of the piezoresistance effect of p-type silicon diffused layers,
IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, ED-29 (1982) 71-77. 19 K. Matsuda, Y. Kanda, K. Yamamura and K. Suzuki,

References
1 C. S. Smith, Piezoresistance effect in germanium and silicon, Phys. Rev., 94 (1954) 42-49.

Nonlinearity of piezoresistance effect in p- and n-type silicon, Sensors and Actuators, AZ-A23 (1990) 45-48. 20 K. Matsuda, Y. Kanda and K. Suzuki, Second-order piezoresistance coefficients of n-type silicon, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., 28 (1989) L1676-L1677. 21 K. Matsuda, Y. Kanda, K. Yamamura and K. Suzuki, Second-order piezoresistance of p-Si, Jpn. J. App[. Phys., 29 (1990) L1941-L1942.