A vibrating beam MEMS accelerometer for gravity and seismic measurements

Arif Mustafazade; Milind Pandit; Chun Zhao; Guillermo Sobreviela; Zhijun Du; Philipp Steinmann; Xudong Zou; Roger T Howe; Ashwin A Seshia

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-67046-x

A vibrating beam MEMS accelerometer for gravity and seismic measurements

Sci Rep. 2020 Jun 26;10(1):10415. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-67046-x.

Authors

Arif Mustafazade^{1

2}, Milind Pandit^{1

2}, Chun Zhao¹, Guillermo Sobreviela^{1

2}, Zhijun Du², Philipp Steinmann², Xudong Zou^{1

3}, Roger T Howe⁴, Ashwin A Seshia^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Nanoscience Centre, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 0FF, UK.
² Silicon Microgravity Ltd., Cambridge Innovation Park, Waterbeach, Cambridge, CB25 9GL, UK.
³ State Key Lab of Transducer Technology, Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
⁴ Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
⁵ Nanoscience Centre, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 0FF, UK. aas41@cam.ac.uk.
⁶ Silicon Microgravity Ltd., Cambridge Innovation Park, Waterbeach, Cambridge, CB25 9GL, UK. aas41@cam.ac.uk.

Abstract

This paper introduces a differential vibrating beam MEMS accelerometer demonstrating excellent long-term stability for applications in gravimetry and seismology. The MEMS gravimeter module demonstrates an output Allan deviation of 9 μGal for a 1000 s integration time, a noise floor of 100 μGal/√Hz, and measurement over the full ±1 g dynamic range (1 g = 9.81 ms^-2). The sensitivity of the device is demonstrated through the tracking of Earth tides and recording of ground motion corresponding to a number of teleseismic events over several months. These results demonstrate that vibrating beam MEMS accelerometers can be employed for measurements requiring high levels of stability and resolution with wider implications for precision measurement employing other resonant-output MEMS devices such as gyroscopes and magnetometers.