A Low-Cost, Nanowatt, Millimeter-Scale Memristive-Vacuum Sensor

This work demonstrates a low-power, lightweight, and cost-efficient vacuum pressure sensor and air leak detector basedon 2 mm x 2 mmCu/HfO2/p(+)-Simemristor device. The operating principle of the proposed sensor relies on monitoring the off-state resistance (R-off) of the device, wherein the experimental results show that the R-off value is inversely proportional to the vacuum pressure. The fabricated sensors demonstrated a sensitivity of 493 Torr(-1) and power consumption as low as similar to 8 nW, when tested in a wide range of sub-atmospheric pressure (4.9 x 10(-5) - 760) Torr, making them highly suitable for low-power applications. Furthermore, it is shown that the sensor can be integrated with a microcontroller-based circuitry to serve as a standalone sensing system.