Reliable operation conditions of MEMS capacitive disk resonator fabricated by deep RIE process under step and shock signals

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) process is commonly used for fabricating the MEMS resonators, which sometimes causes the profile of the resonator capacitor inclined. This nonideal feature significantly affects the motion stability of the resonator. In present work, for different inclination angles, the reliable operation conditions of the MEMS disk resonator for step inertial signal and pulse inertial signal are analyzed using the energy method. The dependence of the critical inertial acceleration on inclination angle and testing signal level is given both in expressions and curves. The results show that for a step inertial signal, the reliable operation range of the resonator with an inclination angle of 0.1° is larger than that of 0.25° by a factor of 2.32 for the same testing signal level, and for a pulse inertial signal, the factor is 2.29. With the increase of the inclination angle, the motion stability of the resonators becomes more and more enhanced. This results can provide a theoretical basis for the design of MEMS disk resonator working in the dynamic inertial environment.