Structural improvement in resonant silicon sensors to sub-ppm/°C temperature coefficient of resonance frequency

Zhanqiang Hou; Xuezhong Wu; Dingbang Xiao; Zhihua Chen; Jianbin Su

doi:10.1117/1.JMM.13.1.013016

20 March 2014 Structural improvement in resonant silicon sensors to sub-ppm/°C temperature coefficient of resonance frequency

Zhanqiang Hou, Xuezhong Wu, Dingbang Xiao, Zhihua Chen, Jianbin Su

Author Affiliations +

Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS, Vol. 13, Issue 1, 013016 (March 2014). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JMM.13.1.013016

Abstract

This paper presents a structural improvement method for temperature coefficient of resonance frequency (TCF) in resonant silicon sensors. A silicon resonator, whose mass was suspended by a slanted flexible beam, was adopted in this study. The slanted suspension beam was formed by (1 0 0) and (1 1 1) crystal planes and fabricated by anisotropic wet etching. We propose a stress buffer structure to improve the robustness of resonance frequency against temperature variations. Theoretical considerations of the tested resonator are proposed to augment the effect of the buffer structure. The temperature dependence of the resonance frequency is experimentally characterized over the range −40°C to 60°C. The TCF of the original resonators with no stress buffer structure was linearly fitted to be 36 and 40 ppm/°C . After using an appropriate stress buffer structure, the TCF is linearly fitted to be −0.98 and 0.36 ppm/°C . The experimental results suggest that the TCF of the resonator is improved to sub-ppm/°C level by using a stress buffer structure, which has more than an order of magnitude improvement comparing to the original one. The small range of TCF is much more convenient to be compensated by electrical ways.

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Zhanqiang Hou, Xuezhong Wu, Dingbang Xiao, Zhihua Chen, and Jianbin Su "Structural improvement in resonant silicon sensors to sub-ppm/°C temperature coefficient of resonance frequency," Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS 13(1), 013016 (20 March 2014). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JMM.13.1.013016

Published: 20 March 2014

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