Silicon

Silicon is the 14th element on the Periodic Table. It’s one of the fundamental constituents of the universe, one proton heavier than aluminum, one proton lighter than phosphorus. After oxygen, it’s the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust — but don’t expect to find it just lying around. Silicon is almost never found in a pure state in nature, and virtually always comes as a compound with other elements.

Silicon offers special benefits when it comes to manufacturing Piezo-resistive pressure sensor chips. Due to its single crystal structure, it shows no plastic deformation but returns to its original state without deformation after pressure loading. Material fatigue and hysteresis effects are therefore virtually eliminated. The semiconductor resistors implanted in the silicon sensor diaphragm are highly sensitive to even the smallest pressures and allow for full scale ranges of only a few millibars.