Low-power electrothermal actuation for microelectromechanical systems

Skinner, Jack L.; Dentinger, Paul M.; Strong, Fabian W.; Gianoulakis, S.E.

doi:10.1117/1.3013549

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…If the material is prevented from expanding the stress experienced can be obtained by combining equations (10) and (11) [23]:…”

Section: Electro-thermal Tuningthermal Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Electro-static excitation is a widely used technique for MEMS actuation allowing more flexible structures' geometries [7]. Despite a slower response and higher power consumption compared to electro-static techniques, electrothermal excitation is considered a good solution to overcome major drawbacks such as critical fabrication steps, impedance matching and relatively high actuation voltages that are typical of electro-static transduction [11]. Si resonators actuated electro-thermally have shown good performance as MEMS filters [12].…”

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confidence: 99%

“…For reliable operation in harsh environments, silicon carbide (SiC) is expected to be a superior material due to its robustness, chemical inertness and radiation resistance [10] [11]. In addition, SiC devices can resonate at higher frequencies compared to silicon (Si) devices with similar dimensions due to SiC's relatively large ratio of Young's modulus E to mass density ρ [14] [15].…”

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confidence: 99%

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Electrothermally Actuated Silicon Carbide Tunable MEMS Resonators

Mastropaolo

Wood

Gual

et al. 2012

J. Microelectromech. Syst.

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This paper presents the fabrication and characterisation of SiC flexural-mode structures able to operate as electro-thermo-mechanical tunable resonators. Single and double clamped beams, as well as circular structures, have been fabricated with aluminium (Al) and platinum (Pt) top electrodes. Electro-thermal excitation has been used for device actuation, resonant frequency tuning and mixing. Circular structures (i.e. disks) have been shown to possess higher resonant frequencies and Q-factors (up to ~23,000) compared to beams having similar dimensions. Tuning of the resonant frequency has been performed by varying the DC and AC component of the actuating voltage on SiC beams with u-shaped and slab Pt electrodes. When increasing the DC bias, frequency shift rates of about-11,000 ppm/V and-1,100 ppm/V are measured for the ushaped and slab electrodes, respectively. When increasing the amplitude of the AC input, shift rates of about-1,800 ppm/V and-800 ppm/V are measured. In addition, measurements have shown that the frequency shift rate increases with the ambient temperature. Electro-thermal mixing has been performed by applying two actuating voltages with the sum or difference of their frequencies matching the fundamental resonance of the SiC structure. Tuning of the electro-thermally mixed output singal has been demonstrated on a disk resonator.

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“…If the material is prevented from expanding the stress experienced can be obtained by combining equations (10) and (11) [23]:…”

Section: Electro-thermal Tuningthermal Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Electrothermally Actuated Silicon Carbide Tunable MEMS Resonators

Mastropaolo

Wood

Gual

et al. 2012

J. Microelectromech. Syst.

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“…However, active methods are demonstrated only for electrothermally [1], [3] and electrostatically actuated [4]- [6] MEMS resonators. Electrothermal actuation is considered a good solution to overcome major drawbacks of electrostatic actuation such as Manuscript critical fabrication steps, impedance matching, and relatively high actuation voltages, but it suffers due to slow response and high power consumption [7]. In contrast, the high efficiency of magnetic actuation significantly reduces the required operation power and allows for the use in portable devices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active Frequency Tuning for Magnetically Actuated and Piezoresistively Sensed MEMS Resonators

Zhang

Zhao

Jiang

et al. 2013

IEEE Electron Device Lett.

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This letter, for the first time, reports an active frequency tuning for a magnetically actuated and piezoresistively sensed MicroElectroMechanical Systems resonator. Magnetic transduction is used to drive the device into the resonance. Piezoresistive transduction is used as resonance sensing technique and to tune the device's frequency by the Joule heating generated in the Wheatstone bridge without fabricating additional electrothermal heaters. The experiments are performed in air at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. The measurements shows that, by increasing the DC bias current of Wheatstone bridge from 0.5 to 5 mA, a maximum tuning range of −3403 ppm is achieved with a device resonating at 25.77 kHz.

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“…A DRIE process enables high-aspect ratio, deep etching of features in silicon wafers using repeated cycles of conformal polymer deposition, ion sputtering, and chemical etching of the silicon. DRIE can be performed on both the device and substrate layers in order to pattern thermal microactuators from the device layer and remove the substrate underneath the microactuators (Milanović, 2004) to reduce heat loss and required power during operation (Skinner et al, 2008). Typically a metal layer is deposited on top of the device layer to improve electrical connections when the parts are packaged.…”

Section: Silicon-on-insulator Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%