Novel silicon-micromachined gyroscope with high Q at atmosphere

Abstract

In this paper, the design, fabrication and test of a novel silicon micromachined gyroscope were presented. The device structure which we called fence gyro consists of a proof mass with bars linked up to substrate by suspend springs and is fabricated by silicon-glass bonding and deep reactive ion etching (DRIE). The proof mass is used as both the movable- driving electrodes and movable-sensing electrodes. The fixed cross-driving electrodes and cross-sensing electrodes under the proof mass are located on the glass substrate. Both the driving and sensing direction are parallel to the substrate. As the proof mass used as the movable electrodes is parallel to the plane of fixed driving and sensing electrodes, there is only slide film damping in the driving and sensing mode. The experiment results shows that the drive and sense mode resonant frequencies are 460.4Hz and 549.6Hz respectively, and the Q factor of the drive and sense are 102.5 and 106.5 respectively at atmospheric pressure. The sensitivity and non-linearity of the micromachined gyroscope are 20mV/$DRG/s and 0.56% respectively at atmospheric pressure.