Design and Simulation of a Dual-Mode Resonant Temperature sensor Based on MEMS Technology

Subject Areas : Majlesi Journal of Telecommunication Devices

Elham Farzanegan ¹ (Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Yadegar-e-Emam Khomeini (RAH) Shahr-e-Rey Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran)
Farshad Babazadeh ² ()

Received: 2019-10-21 Accepted : 2019-10-23 Published : 2019-12-01

Keywords: Temperature sensing, Dual-mode (DM) resonator, Beat frequency, MEMS, Dual-mode (DM) resonator, Microelectromechanical Systems,

Abstract :

In this paper, a dual-mode (DM) micromechanical elliptical ring resonator for use in temperature sensing is reported. The proposed resonator is made of single crystal silicon and works based on beat frequency (fb). In the designed sensor, temperature coefficient of beat frequency (TCfb) will be increased significantly by minimizing the fb and provides better temperature sensitivity. This proposed device was designed and simulated by COMSOL Multyphysics software. By engineering the device geometry, we introduce two adjacent resonant frequencies which produce very small fb in the range of 2 kHz. The device shows TCf1 of about 44 ppm/ºC and TCf2 of 5 ppm/ºC. Combination of small fb and large ΔTCf, present temperature coefficient of beat frequency (TCfb) about 112000 ppm/ºC which has approximately 75improvement in TCfb compared to previous demonstrated DM resonators.

References:

[1] Clark J R, Hsu W, Abdelmoneum M A and Nguyen C, "High-Q UHF micromechanical radial-contour mode disk resonators" IEEE/ASME J. Microelectromech. Syst. 2007.

[2] Stemme G, "Resonant silicon sensors" J. Micromech.Microeng., 1991.

[3] Wojciechowski K E, Boser B E and Pisano A P A, "MEMS resonant strain sensor operated in air" Proc. IEEE MEMS 2004 (Maastricht), 2004.

[4] Seshia A A, Palaniapan M, Roessig T A, Howe R T,Gooch R W, Schimert T R and Montague S,"A vacuum packaged surface micromachined resonant accelerometer" J. Microelectromech. Syst., 2002.

[5] Yang Y T, Callegari C, Feng X L, Ekinci K L and Roukes M L Zeptogram-scale,"nanomechanical mass sensing" Nano Lett., 2006 .

[6] Jha C M, Bahl G, Melamud R, Chandorkar S, Hopcroft M A, Kim B, Agarwal M, Salvia J, Mehta H and Kenny T W," High resolution microresonator-based digital temperature sensor" Appl. Phys. Lett., 2007.

[7] Fu, J. L., et al.,"Dual-mode AlN-on-silicon micromechanical resonators for temperature sensing." IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices 61(2): 2014, 591-597.

[8] Nguyen C,"MEMS technology for timing and frequency control" IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control, 2007.

[9] Hopcroft M. et al, "A high-stability MEMS frequency reference" Proc. Transducers ’07 (Lyon), 2007, pp 1307–9.

[10] Hopcroft, M. et al, “Active Temperature Compensation for Micromechanical Resonators". Hilton Head MEMS Workshop, 2004. Wilton Head, SC USA.

[11] Hsu, W.-T. And C.T.X. Nguyen, "Stiffness-compensated temperature-insensitive micromechanical resonators".MEMS 2002.

[12] Hsu, W.-T. and C.T.-C. Nguyen," Geometric Stress Compensation for Enhanced Thermal Stability in Micromechanical Resonators." IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium, 1998.

[13] Casset, F., et al. "MEMS resonator temperature compensation.", 11th International Thermal, Mechanical & Multi-Physics Simulation, and Experiments in Microelectronics and Microsystems (EuroSimE). IEEE, 2010.

[14] Tabrizian, R. "Temperature Compensated MEMS Reference Oscillators with Sub-PPM Instability",2012.

[15] Schodowski, S. S., "Resonator self-temperature-sensing using a dual-harmonic-mode crystal oscillator". Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Symposium on Frequency Control, IEEE, 1989.

[16] Kusters, J. A., et al.,"Dual mode operation of temperature and stress compensated crystals". 32nd Annual Symposium on Frequency Control, IEEE, 1978.

[17] Sinha, B. K., "Stress compensated orientations for thickness-shear quartz resonators". Thirty Fifth Annual Frequency Control Symposium, IEEE, 1981.

[18] Besson, R., et al., "A dual-mode thickness-shear quartz pressure sensor." IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control 40(5): 1993, 584-591.

[19] Pierce, D. E., et al.,"A temperature insensitive quartz microbalance." IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control 45(5): 1998, 1238-1245.

[20] Kosykh, A. V., et al., "Dual-mode crystal oscillators with resonators excited on B and C modes". Proceedings of IEEE 48th Annual Symposium on Frequency Control, IEEE, 1994.