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MEMS Sensors and Resonators
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MEMS Sensors and Resonators

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2019) | Viewed by 54860

Printed Edition Available!
A printed edition of this Special Issue is available here.

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Frederic Nabki

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Guest Editor
Department of Electrical Engineering, École de Technologie Supérieure, Montréal, QC H3C 1K3, Canada
Interests: analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits; integrated sensors; integration of MEMS with electronics; MEMS sensors and actuators; microelectromechanical systems (MEMS); micro-fabrication; radiofrequency integrated circuits (RFICs); resonant MEMS; sensor interface circuits; ultra-wideband impulse radio (IR-UWB)
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have had a profound impact in a wide range of applications. The degree of miniaturization made possible by MEMS technology has significantly improved the functionalities of many systems, and the performance of MEMS has been steadily improving with ever-increasing use cases. Notably, MEMS sensors have been prevalent in motion sensing applications for decades, and the sensing mechanisms leveraged by MEMS have continuously been expanding to applications spanning the detection of gases, magnetic fields, electromagnetic radiation and many more. In parallel, MEMS resonators have become an emerging field of MEMS touching fields such as electronic timing and filtering, and energy harvesting, and they have enabled a wide range of resonant sensors. For many years now, MEMS have been the basis of many industrial successes, often building on novel academic research.

Accordingly, this Special Issue invites authors from academia and industry to share their research innovations in MEMS sensors and resonators, touching on devices enabled by MEMS such as, but not limited to:

  • accelerometers, gyroscopes and inertial measurement units
  • bio sensors
  • bolometers
  • gas sensors
  • magnetometers
  • micro-mechanical filters
  • micro-resonator-based timing systems
  • micro-resonators
  • microphones
  • pressure sensors
  • resonant energy harvesting
  • resonant sensors
  • ultrasonic transducers

Prof. Dr. Frederic Nabki
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Electromagnetic sensing
  • Gas sensing
  • MEMS resonators
  • MEMS sensors
  • Motion sensing
  • Resonant structures
  • Ultrasonic sensing

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Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

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19 pages, 6229 KiB  
Article
Design and Mechanical Sensitivity Analysis of a MEMS Tuning Fork Gyroscope with an Anchored Leverage Mechanism
by Zezhang Li, Shiqiao Gao, Lei Jin, Haipeng Liu, Yanwei Guan and Shigang Peng
Sensors 2019, 19(16), 3455; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19163455 - 7 Aug 2019
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 4268
Abstract
This paper presents the design and analysis of a new micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) tuning fork gyroscope (TFG), which can effectively improve the mechanical sensitivity of the gyroscope sense-mode by the designed leverage mechanism. A micromachined TFG with an anchored leverage mechanism is designed. [...] Read more.
This paper presents the design and analysis of a new micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) tuning fork gyroscope (TFG), which can effectively improve the mechanical sensitivity of the gyroscope sense-mode by the designed leverage mechanism. A micromachined TFG with an anchored leverage mechanism is designed. The dynamics and mechanical sensitivity of the design are theoretically analyzed. The improvement rate of mechanical sensitivity (IRMS) is introduced to represent the optimization effect of the new structure compared with the conventional one. The analytical solutions illustrate that the IRMS monotonically increases with increased stiffness ratio of the power arm (SRPA) but decreases with increased stiffness ratio of the resistance arm (SRRA). Therefore, three types of gyro structures with different stiffness ratios are designed. The mechanical sensitivities increased by 79.10%, 81.33% and 68.06% by theoretical calculation. Additionally, FEM simulation demonstrates that the mechanical sensitivity of the design is in accord with theoretical results. The linearity of design is analyzed, too. Consequently, the proposed new anchored leverage mechanism TFG offers a higher displacement output of sense mode to improve the mechanical sensitivity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MEMS Sensors and Resonators)
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17 pages, 3801 KiB  
Article
Design of the Squared Daisy: A Multi-Mode Energy Harvester, with Reduced Variability and a Non-Linear Frequency Response
by Mathieu Gratuze, Abdul Hafiz Alameh and Frederic Nabki
Sensors 2019, 19(15), 3247; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19153247 - 24 Jul 2019
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 3566
Abstract
With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the ever-increasing number of integrated sensors, the question of powering these devices represents an additional challenge. The traditional approach is to use a battery; however, harvesting energy from the environment seems to be [...] Read more.
With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the ever-increasing number of integrated sensors, the question of powering these devices represents an additional challenge. The traditional approach is to use a battery; however, harvesting energy from the environment seems to be the most practical approach. To that end, the use of piezoelectric MEMS energy has been proven as a potential power source in a wide range of applications. In this work, a proof of concept for a new architecture for MEMS energy harvesters is presented. The influence of the dimensions and different characteristics of these designs is discussed. These designs have been proven to be resilient to process variation thanks to their unique architecture. This work presents the use of vibration enhancement petals in order to widen the bandwidth of the energy harvester and provide a non-linear frequency response. The use of these vibration enhancement petals has allowed the fabrication of three design variations, each using an area of 1700 µm by 1700 µm. These designs have an operating bandwidth between 3.9 kHz and 14.5 kHz and can be scaled to achieve other targeted resonant frequencies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MEMS Sensors and Resonators)
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14 pages, 3338 KiB  
Article
A Sub-mW 18-MHz MEMS Oscillator Based on a 98-dBΩ Adjustable Bandwidth Transimpedance Amplifier and a Lamé-Mode Resonator
by Anoir Bouchami, Mohannad Y. Elsayed and Frederic Nabki
Sensors 2019, 19(12), 2680; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19122680 - 13 Jun 2019
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4649
Abstract
This paper presents a microelectromechanical system (MEMS)-based oscillator based on a Lamé-mode capacitive micromachined resonator and a fully differential high-gain transimpedance amplifier (TIA). The proposed TIA is designed using TSMC 65 nm CMOS technology and consumes only 0.9 mA from a 1-V supply. [...] Read more.
This paper presents a microelectromechanical system (MEMS)-based oscillator based on a Lamé-mode capacitive micromachined resonator and a fully differential high-gain transimpedance amplifier (TIA). The proposed TIA is designed using TSMC 65 nm CMOS technology and consumes only 0.9 mA from a 1-V supply. The measured mid-band transimpedance gain is 98 dB Ω and the TIA features an adjustable bandwidth with a maximum bandwidth of 142 MHz for a parasitic capacitance C P of 4 pF. The measured input-referred current noise of the TIA at mid-band is below 15 pA/ Hz . The TIA is connected to a Lamé-mode resonator, and the oscillator performance in terms of phase noise and frequency stability is presented. The measured phase noise under vacuum is −120 dBc/Hz at a 1-kHz offset, while the phase noise floor reaches −127 dBc/Hz. The measured short-term stability of the MEMS-based oscillator is ±0.25 ppm. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MEMS Sensors and Resonators)
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9 pages, 2379 KiB  
Article
A Resonant Pressure Microsensor with the Measurement Range of 1 MPa Based on Sensitivities Balanced Dual Resonators
by Yulan Lu, Pengcheng Yan, Chao Xiang, Deyong Chen, Junbo Wang, Bo Xie and Jian Chen
Sensors 2019, 19(10), 2272; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19102272 - 16 May 2019
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 5125
Abstract
This paper presents a resonant pressure microsensor with the measurement range of 1 MPa suitable for the soaring demands of industrial gas pressure calibration equipment. The proposed microsensor consists of an SOI layer as a sensing element and a glass cap for vacuum [...] Read more.
This paper presents a resonant pressure microsensor with the measurement range of 1 MPa suitable for the soaring demands of industrial gas pressure calibration equipment. The proposed microsensor consists of an SOI layer as a sensing element and a glass cap for vacuum packaging. The sensing elements include a pressure-sensitive diaphragm and two resonators embedded in the diaphragm by anchor structures. The resonators are excited by a convenient Lorentz force and detected by electromagnetic induction, which can maintain high signal outputs. In operation, the pressure under measurement bends the pressure-sensitive diaphragm of the microsensor, producing frequency shifts of the two underlining resonators. The microsensor structures were designed and optimized using finite element analyses and a 4” SOI wafer was employed in fabrications, which requires only one photolithographic step. Experimental results indicate that the Q-factors of the resonators are higher than 25,000 with a differential temperature sensitivity of 0.22 Hz/°C, pressure sensitivities of 6.6 Hz/kPa, and −6.5 Hz/kPa, which match the simulation results of differential temperature sensitivity of 0.2 Hz/°C and pressure sensitivities of ±6.5 Hz/kPa. In addition, characterizations based on a closed-loop manner indicate that the presented sensor demonstrates low fitting errors within 0.01% FS, high accuracy of 0.01% FS in the pressure range of 20 kPa to 1 MPa and temperature range of −55 to 85 °C, and the long-term stability within 0.01% FS in a 156-day period under the room temperature. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MEMS Sensors and Resonators)
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13 pages, 6004 KiB  
Article
Complementary Metamaterial Sensor for Nondestructive Evaluation of Dielectric Substrates
by Tanveer ul Haq, Cunjun Ruan, Xingyun Zhang and Shahid Ullah
Sensors 2019, 19(9), 2100; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19092100 - 7 May 2019
Cited by 55 | Viewed by 5026
Abstract
In this paper, complementary metamaterial sensor is designed for nondestructive evaluation of dielectric substrates. The design concept is based on electromagnetic stored energy in the complementary circular spiral resonator (CCSR), which is concentrated in small volume near the host substrate at resonance. This [...] Read more.
In this paper, complementary metamaterial sensor is designed for nondestructive evaluation of dielectric substrates. The design concept is based on electromagnetic stored energy in the complementary circular spiral resonator (CCSR), which is concentrated in small volume near the host substrate at resonance. This energy can be employed to detect various electromagnetic properties of materials under test (MUT). Effective electric permittivity and magnetic permeability of the proposed sensor is extracted from scattering parameters. Sensitivity analysis is performed by varying the permittivity of MUT. After sensitivity analysis, a sensor is fabricated using standard PCB fabrication technique, and resonance frequency of the sensor due to interaction with different MUT is measured using vector network analyzer (AV3672series). The transcendental equation is derived for the fabricated sensor to calculate relative permittivity for unknown MUTs. This method is very simple and requires calculating only the resonant frequency, which reduces the cost and computation time. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MEMS Sensors and Resonators)
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11 pages, 4876 KiB  
Article
Temperature-Insensitive Structure Design of Micromachined Resonant Accelerometers
by Yonggang Yin, Zhengxiang Fang, Yunfeng Liu and Fengtian Han
Sensors 2019, 19(7), 1544; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19071544 - 30 Mar 2019
Cited by 40 | Viewed by 4302
Abstract
Micromachined resonant accelerometers (MRAs), especially those devices fabricated by silicon on glass technology, suffer from temperature drift error caused by inherent thermal stress. This paper proposes two structure designs to attenuate the effect of thermal stress. The first MRA structure is realized by [...] Read more.
Micromachined resonant accelerometers (MRAs), especially those devices fabricated by silicon on glass technology, suffer from temperature drift error caused by inherent thermal stress. This paper proposes two structure designs to attenuate the effect of thermal stress. The first MRA structure is realized by optimizing the locations of the bonding anchors and utilizing a special-shaped substrate to isolate the thermal stress generated during the die attach process. The second structure is designed using an isolation frame fixed by a single anchor to replace all dispersed anchors associated with the suspension beams and micro-levers. Simulated and experimental results show that both of the MRA structures can effectively reduce the thermal stress effect. The experimental results on one MRA prototype indicate that the differential temperature sensitivity reduces down to 1.9 μg/°C and its 15-day bias stability reaches 1.4 μg. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MEMS Sensors and Resonators)
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24 pages, 10861 KiB  
Article
Mechanical Behaviors Research and the Structural Design of a Bipolar Electrostatic Actuation Microbeam Resonator
by Jingjing Feng, Cheng Liu, Wei Zhang, Jianxin Han and Shuying Hao
Sensors 2019, 19(6), 1348; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19061348 - 18 Mar 2019
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3380
Abstract
A class of bipolar electrostatically actuated micro-resonators is presented in this paper. Two parametric equations are proposed for changing the microbeam shape of the upper and lower sections. The mechanical properties of a micro-resonator can be enhanced by optimizing the two section parameters. [...] Read more.
A class of bipolar electrostatically actuated micro-resonators is presented in this paper. Two parametric equations are proposed for changing the microbeam shape of the upper and lower sections. The mechanical properties of a micro-resonator can be enhanced by optimizing the two section parameters. The electrostatic force nonlinearity, neutral surface tension, and neutral surface bending are considered in the model. First, the theoretical results are verified with finite element results from COMSOL Multiphysics simulations. The influence of section variation on the electrostatic force, pull-in behaviors and safe working area of the micro-resonator are studied. Moreover, the impact of residual stress on pull-in voltage is discussed. The multi-scale method (MMS) is used to further study the vibration of the microbeam near equilibrium, and the relationship between the two section parameters of the microbeam under linear vibration was determined. The vibration amplitude and resonance frequency are investigated when the two section parameters satisfy the linear vibration. In order to research dynamic analysis under the case of large amplitude. The Simulink dynamics simulation was used to study the influence of section variation on the response frequency. It is found that electrostatic softening increases as the vibration amplitude increases. If the nonlinearity initially shows hardening behavior, the frequency response will shift from hardening to softening as the amplitude increases. The position of softening-hardening transition point decreases with the increase of residual stress. The relationship between DC voltage, section parameters, and softening-hardening transition points is presented. The accuracy of the results is verified using theoretical, numerical, and finite element methods. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MEMS Sensors and Resonators)
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8 pages, 5127 KiB  
Article
Low Concentration Response Hydrogen Sensors Based on Wheatstone Bridge
by Hongchuan Jiang, Xiaoyu Tian, Xinwu Deng, Xiaohui Zhao, Luying Zhang, Wanli Zhang, Jianfeng Zhang and Yifan Huang
Sensors 2019, 19(5), 1096; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19051096 - 4 Mar 2019
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4578
Abstract
The PdNi film hydrogen sensors with Wheatstone bridge structure were designed and fabricated with the micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology. The integrated sensors consisted of four PdNi alloy film resistors. The internal two were shielded with silicon nitride film and used as reference resistors, [...] Read more.
The PdNi film hydrogen sensors with Wheatstone bridge structure were designed and fabricated with the micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology. The integrated sensors consisted of four PdNi alloy film resistors. The internal two were shielded with silicon nitride film and used as reference resistors, while the others were used for hydrogen sensing. The PdNi alloy films and SiN films were deposited by magnetron sputtering. The morphology and microstructure of the PdNi films were characterized with X-ray diffraction (XRD). For efficient data acquisition, the output signal was converted from resistance to voltage. Hydrogen (H2) sensing properties of PdNi film hydrogen sensors with Wheatstone bridge structure were investigated under different temperatures (30 °C, 50 °C and 70 °C) and H2 concentrations (from 10 ppm to 0.4%). The hydrogen sensor demonstrated distinct response at different hydrogen concentrations and high repeatability in cycle testing under 0.4% H2 concentration. Towards 10 ppm hydrogen, the PdNi film hydrogen sensor had evident and collectable output voltage of 600 μV. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MEMS Sensors and Resonators)
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9 pages, 4362 KiB  
Article
Low-Hysteresis and Fast Response Time Humidity Sensors Using Suspended Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes
by Shivaram Arunachalam, Ricardo Izquierdo and Frederic Nabki
Sensors 2019, 19(3), 680; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19030680 - 7 Feb 2019
Cited by 36 | Viewed by 5877
Abstract
A humidity sensor using suspended carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was fabricated using a low-temperature surface micromachining process. The CNTs were functionalized with carboxylic acid groups that facilitated the interaction of water vapor with the CNTs. The humidity sensor showed a response time of 12 [...] Read more.
A humidity sensor using suspended carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was fabricated using a low-temperature surface micromachining process. The CNTs were functionalized with carboxylic acid groups that facilitated the interaction of water vapor with the CNTs. The humidity sensor showed a response time of 12 s and a recovery time of 47 s, along with superior hysteresis and stable performance. The hysteresis curve area of the suspended structure is 3.6, a 3.2-fold reduction in comparison to the non-suspended structure. A comparative study between suspended and non-suspended devices highlights the advantages of using a suspended architecture. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MEMS Sensors and Resonators)
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Review

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22 pages, 2021 KiB  
Review
Silicon-Based Sensors for Biomedical Applications: A Review
by Yongzhao Xu, Xiduo Hu, Sudip Kundu, Anindya Nag, Nasrin Afsarimanesh, Samta Sapra, Subhas Chandra Mukhopadhyay and Tao Han
Sensors 2019, 19(13), 2908; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19132908 - 1 Jul 2019
Cited by 112 | Viewed by 12304
Abstract
The paper highlights some of the significant works done in the field of medical and biomedical sensing using silicon-based technology. The use of silicon sensors is one of the pivotal and prolonged techniques employed in a range of healthcare, industrial and environmental applications [...] Read more.
The paper highlights some of the significant works done in the field of medical and biomedical sensing using silicon-based technology. The use of silicon sensors is one of the pivotal and prolonged techniques employed in a range of healthcare, industrial and environmental applications by virtue of its distinct advantages over other counterparts in Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Among them, the sensors for biomedical applications are one of the most significant ones, which not only assist in improving the quality of human life but also help in the field of microfabrication by imparting knowledge about how to develop enhanced multifunctional sensing prototypes. The paper emphasises the use of silicon, in different forms, to fabricate electrodes and substrates for the sensors that are to be used for biomedical sensing. The electrical conductivity and the mechanical flexibility of silicon vary to a large extent depending on its use in developing prototypes. The article also explains some of the bottlenecks that need to be dealt with in the current scenario, along with some possible remedies. Finally, a brief market survey is given to estimate a probable increase in the usage of silicon in developing a variety of biomedical prototypes in the upcoming years. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MEMS Sensors and Resonators)
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