Investigation on the Quality Factor Limit of the (111) Silicon Based Disk Resonator

Xin Zhou; Dingbang Xiao; Qingsong Li; Qian Hu; Zhanqiang Hou; Kaixuan He; Zhihua Chen; Chun Zhao; Yulie Wu; Xuezhong Wu; Ashwin Seshia

doi:10.3390/mi9010025

Investigation on the Quality Factor Limit of the (111) Silicon Based Disk Resonator

Micromachines (Basel). 2018 Jan 22;9(1):25. doi: 10.3390/mi9010025.

Authors

Xin Zhou^{1

2}, Dingbang Xiao³, Qingsong Li⁴, Qian Hu⁵, Zhanqiang Hou⁶, Kaixuan He^{7

8}, Zhihua Chen⁹, Chun Zhao¹⁰, Yulie Wu¹¹, Xuezhong Wu¹², Ashwin Seshia¹³

Affiliations

¹ College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China. xz387@cam.ac.uk.
² Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0FF, UK. xz387@cam.ac.uk.
³ College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China. dingbangxiao@nudt.edu.cn.
⁴ College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China. liqingsong@nudt.edu.cn.
⁵ College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China. huqian@nudt.edu.cn.
⁶ College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China. houzhanqiang@nudt.edu.cn.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System, School of Microelectronics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China. 17112020020@fudan.edu.cn.
⁸ East China Institute of Photo-Electronic IC, Bengbu 233042, China. 17112020020@fudan.edu.cn.
⁹ College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China. zhchen@nudt.edu.cn.
¹⁰ Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0FF, UK. cz319@cam.ac.uk.
¹¹ College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China. ylwu@nudt.edu.cn.
¹² College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China. xzwu@nudt.edu.cn.
¹³ Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0FF, UK. aas41@eng.cam.ac.uk.

Abstract

Quality factor is one of the most important parameters for a MEMS resonator. Most MEMS resonators are dominated by thermoelastic dissipation (TED). This paper demonstrates that the TED in a disk resonator that is made of (111) single-crystal silicon is surpassed by clamping loss. The stiffness-mass decoupling design method, combined with reducing the beam width, was used to engineer high Q_TED. Experiments show that Q of the (111) disk resonator have an upper boundary that is determined by the clamping loss caused by the unbalanced out-of-plane displacement. The origin of the out-of-plane displacement is explained by theory and simulation.

Keywords: Microelectromechanical systems; clamping loss; disk resonator; gyroscope; quality factor; thermoelastic dissipation.

Grants and funding

51575521/National Natural Science Foundation of China