Influence of the A-F effect on the temperature stability of silicon micromechanical resonators

Author

Lee, H.K. ; Melamud, R. ; Chandorkar, S.A. ; Qu, Y.Q. ; Salvia, J.C. ; Kim, B. ; Hopcroft, M.A. ; Kenny, T.W.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. Eng., Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

5-9 June 2011

Firstpage

506

Lastpage

509

Abstract

Micromechanical resonators (MEMS resonators) often show a discrepancy between the frequency-temperature (f-T) characteristics they have in open-loop and closed-loop measurements. We show that this discrepancy is due to the nonlinear amplitude-frequency (A-f) effect: the quality factor (Q) can increase by more than a factor of 2 when the resonators go from a high temperature to a low temperature; simple oscillators thus allow the resonator amplitude to change with temperature; then, the A-f effect becomes temperature-dependent, causing the discrepancy. We also show how the discrepancy adversely affects the temperature stability of single-crystal-silicon (SCS) resonators and demonstrate a new closed-loop system that improves the stability by removing the discrepancy.

Keywords

micromechanical resonators; silicon; thermal stability; closed-loop measurements; nonlinear amplitude-frequency effect; open-loop measurements; silicon micromechanical resonators; single-crystal-silicon resonators; temperature stability; Gain control; Micromechanical devices; Resonant frequency; Temperature; Temperature dependence; Temperature measurement; Thermal stability; A-f effect; oscillator; resonator; temperature stability;

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.2011.5969666

Filename

5969666