An investigation of the damping effects of various gas environments on a vibratory MEMS device

An experimental investigation of the damping effects in several different gas chemistries on a vibrating micromachined structure was conducted. A corresponding numerical study using an analytical model was also performed and the results correlated with the experimental observations. The analytical model is based on the compressible Reynolds equation. The theoretical and experimental quality factor show reasonable agreement for different gases. As expected, the quality factor decreases as the gas pressure increases. Both experiments and numerical predictions suggest that these various gases may not affect the mechanical behavior significantly, and could be used for their unique electrical properties, such as permittivities.