Investigation of the Effects of Hydrodynamic and Parasitic Electrostatic Forces on the Dynamics of a High Aspect Ratio MEMS Accelerometer

AbstractWe present the results of an extensive characterization of physical and electrostatic effects influencing the dynamical behavior of a micro-electromechanical (MEMS) accelerometer based on commercial technology. A similar device has been utilized recently to demonstrate the effect of Casimir and other nano-scale interactions on the pull-in distance [Ardito et. al., Microelectron. Reliab., 52 (2012) 271]. In the present work, we focus on the influence of pressure, plate separation, and electric surface potentials on the spectral mechanical response. We finally find evidence for the presence of non-viscous damping due to compressibility of the ambient gas, and demonstrate a strong dependence of the sensitivity on the parameters of the operating point

MEMS force microactuator with displacement sensing for mechanobiology experiments

This paper presents a Micro Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) that performs electrostatic force actuation and capacitive microdisplacement sensing in the same chip. By driving the actuator with a given voltage, a known force can be applied to a microsample under test by using a silicon probe tip, while the obtained displacement is measured. This allows to extract the mechanical properties of the microsample entirely on chip, and to derive its force-displacement curve without external equipment. The proposed device is intended for mechanobiology experiments, where the microsample is made of biological tissues or cells. The device generates a force in the order of few micronewtons and a maximum displacement of 1.8 μm can be measured

Investigation of the effects of hydrodynamic and parasitic electrostatic forces on the dynamics of a high aspect ratio MEMS accelerometer

We present the results of an extensive characterization of physical and electrostatic effects influencing the dynamical behavior of a micro-electromechanical (MEMS) accelerometer based on commercial technology. A similar device has been utilized recently to demonstrate the effect of Casimir and other nano-scale interactions on the pull-in distance [Ardito et. al., Microelectron. Reliab., 52 (2012) 271]. In the present work, we focus on the influence of pressure, plate separation, and electric surface potentials on the spectral mechanical response. We finally find evidence for the presence of non-viscous damping due to compressibility of the ambient gas, and demonstrate a strong dependence of the sensitivity on the parameters of the operating point