Quality factors of MEMS gyros and the role of thermoelastic damping

Author

Duwel, A. ; Weinstein, M. ; Gorman, J. ; Borenstein, J. ; Ward, P.

Author_Institution

Draper (C.S.) Lab., Cambridge, MA, USA

fYear

2002

fDate

24-24 Jan. 2002

Firstpage

214

Lastpage

219

Abstract

In this paper, we present new experimental data illustrating the importance of thermoelastic damping in MEMS resonant sensors. We have used MEMS gyroscopes to demonstrate that both the choice of materials and variations in device design can lead to significant differences in the measured Quality (Q) factors of the device. These differences in Q factor can be explained by including the contribution of thermoelastic damping (TED), which varies strongly between the different silicon etch-stop compositions used in this study. Known damping mechanisms such as fluid damping, anchor damping, and electronics damping are minimized and held fixed in this experiment so that materials effects can be isolated.

Keywords

Q-factor; damping; gyroscopes; micromechanical resonators; microsensors; thermoelasticity; MEMS gyroscope; Si; quality factor; resonant sensor; silicon etch-stop composition; thermoelastic damping; Damping; Etching; Gyroscopes; Micromechanical devices; Q factor; Q measurement; Resonance; Silicon; Thermal sensors; Thermoelasticity;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2002. The Fifteenth IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Las Vegas, NV, USA

ISSN

1084-6999

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7185-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEMSYS.2002.984242

Filename

984242