Performance of I-shaped piezoelectric-excited millimeter-sized cantilever in sensing applications: modeling, simulation and experiment

Detection sensitivity has a key role in the realm of piezoelectric-excited millimeter-sized cantilever (PEMC) sensors. Operating principle of these sensors is based on measuring the electrical impedance of piezoelectric layer attached to the base cantilever. While most of studies in this area have focused on sensitivity improvement by minimizing the dimensions of the base cantilever, in this paper, effect of modifying the cross-section shape of the cantilever on enhancing the detection sensitivity of these sensors has been studied. To this end, a new PEMC sensor with I-shaped cross-section was proposed. Performance of this sensor in detecting the tiny masses added on the cantilever tip and also detecting the liquid level changes has been explored by theoretical modelling, finite element simulations and via experiments. The achieved results were compared with the detection sensitivities of the sensor with the same dimensions but rectangular-shaped cross section. Theoretical and simulation results were in good agreement with experimental outcomes. By changing the cross section of the base cantilever from rectangular-shaped to I-shaped, mass detection and liquid level detection sensitivities achieved via experiments, increased up to 2.04 and 3.75 times, respectively.