Advanced Fabrication Techniques for an Ion Mobility Spectrometer in Low Temperature CoFired Ceramics

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Advanced Fabrication Techniques for an Ion
Mobility Spectrometer in Low Temperature Co-Fired
Ceramics
Brian Jaques
Project Scope Design and develop an Ion
Mobility Spectrometer (IMS) sensor to
detect volatile organic compounds
(VOCs). This will be done in
a multi-layered ceramic
package that is robust and
hermetically sealed.
Problem The Ion Mobility Spectrometer (IMS)
design pushes the fabrication limits of the Low
Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic (LTCC) materials.
Large, multi-layer stacks of LTCC typically
result in separations between layers and cracks
when fabricated using traditional manufacturing
techniques, causing the loss of conductivity,
time, and materials.
Results A hermetically sealed, fully conductive
IMS with five embedded metal gates has been
fabricated with 156 interconnected layers. This
device has the highest layer count of ANY LTCC
structure currently in existence.
Acknowledgements