Improved electrothermal position sensing in MEMS with non-uniformly shaped heaters

Author

Bazaei, Ali ; Fowler, Anthony George ; Moheimani, S.O.R.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Newcastle Australia, Callaghan, NSW, Australia

fYear

2012

fDate

28-31 Oct. 2012

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

For electrothermal MEMS position sensors, we introduce a non-uniform beam profile to enhance their sensitivity, linearity, and noise characteristics. Simulation results confirm that the proposed beam profile provides a more uniform temperature distribution compared to conventional electrothermal sensors with uniform beam cross sections. The effectiveness of the proposed sensor compared to a conventional design is experimentally verified by fabricating and testing an electrostatic SOI MEMS nanopositioner equipped with both types of sensors.

Keywords

electrostatic devices; heating; microsensors; position measurement; silicon-on-insulator; MEMS position sensor; electrostatic SOI MEMS nanopositioner; electrothermal position sensing; electrothermal sensor; linearity enhancement; noise characteristics; nonuniform beam profile; nonuniformly shaped heaters; sensitivity enhancement; uniform temperature distribution; Actuators; Resistance heating; Sensor phenomena and characterization; Temperature sensors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Sensors, 2012 IEEE

Conference_Location

Taipei

ISSN

1930-0395

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-1766-6

Electronic_ISBN

1930-0395

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSENS.2012.6411220

Filename

6411220