Development of Humidity Sensor on Interdigitated Electrode (IDE) for Agriculture Applications

Measuring humidity is a critical aspect of growing crops. In this paper, the performance of the humidity sensor is observed based on different structures of samples. The performance of the designs is compared between 50um and $100 \mu \mathrm{m}$ of the electrode’s width and spacing. The implementation of the grounded backplate, located at the bottom of the sample also will be compared in terms of its performance. This grounded backplate is to optimize the fringing effect field of the sensor and produces a better sensitivity. Finite Element Method Magnetics (FEMM) is the software used to simulate the samples. There are about 24 different structures of designs that had been simulated and recorded in a table to observe their capacitance value to analyze their performance. The result shows $100 \mu \mathrm{m}$ electrode spacing with the presence of a grounded backplate produces a great humidity performance with higher sensitivity, higher response time, and higher recovery time. The thin film will be deposited on the Interdigitated electrodes (IDE) by using Electrochemical Deposition (ECD) method.