Novel Temperature Compensation Scheme Formicroresonators Based on Controlled Stiffnessmodulation

A novel strategy to compensate for frequency drifts caused by stiffness changes in resonant microstructures is presented. The proposed compensation method is based on a controlled stiffness modulation of the resonator by an additional feedback loop and extracting the frequency changes caused by the modulated stiffness. The feasibility of the suggested method is verified experimentally by compensating for frequency fluctuations of a micromachined resonator induced by ambient temperature changes. In principle, the proposed method can be applied to compensate for all factors influencing the spring constant, such as packaging-induced stresses and material aging. Moreover, the proposed method is applicable to all resonant microstructures featuring excitation and detection elements.