Planar Capacitive Transducers for a Miniaturized Particulate Matter Detector

Abstract

Planar capacitive transducers represent a widespread approach in various sensors since they are amenable to be integrated onto the same die of the electronic front end. The conventional interdigital topology is usually adopted due to its inherent simplicity and modularity. In this paper we explore unconventional topologies of planar capacitive transducers in order to optimize capacitance variation in a fully-integrated CMOS capacitive airborne particulate matter detector. Simulations shows that the circular concentrical topology exhibits the best performance for PM10 detection irrespectively of the particle distance.