Sub-degree-per-hour silicon MEMS rate sensor with 1 million Q-factor

Author

Prikhodko, Igor P. ; Zotov, Sergei A. ; Trusov, Alexander A. ; Shkel, Andrei M.

Author_Institution

Microsyst. Lab., Univ. of California, Irvine, CA, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

5-9 June 2011

Firstpage

2809

Lastpage

2812

Abstract

We report characterization of a silicon MEMS rate gyroscope with measured sub-deg/hr bias stability, enabled by the quality factor (Q) of 1.1 million. The rate sensor utilizes degenerate, dynamically balanced Quadruple Mass Gyroscope (QMG) design, which suppresses substrate energy dissipation and maximizes Q-factors. We demonstrated a 0.9°/hr in-run bias stability and a 0.06°/√hr rate noise density for the 0.1 mTorr vacuum packaged QMG with a 0.2 Hz mode-mismatch between drive- and sense-modes. This level of noise allowed detection of azimuth with 150 mrad precision, showing feasibility of a QMG for gyrocompassing.

Keywords

Q-factor; elemental semiconductors; gyroscopes; microsensors; packaging; silicon; MEMS rate gyroscope; Q-factor; Si; gyrocompassing; noise density; noise detection; quality factor; subdeg-hr bias stability measurement; subdegree-per-hour MEMS rate sensor; substrate energy dissipation suppression; vacuum packaged QMG design; vacuum packaged quadruple mass gyroscope design; Azimuth; Gyroscopes; Micromechanical devices; Noise; Q factor; Resonant frequency; Temperature sensors; MEMS gyroscope; gyrocompassing; north-finding;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Conference (TRANSDUCERS), 2011 16th International

Conference_Location

Beijing

ISSN

Pending

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-0157-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/TRANSDUCERS.2011.5969216

Filename

5969216