Energy Loss Mechanisms in a Bulk-Micromachined Tuning Fork Gyroscope

This paper presents an analytical and experimental study of energy loss mechanisms in a bulk-micromachined tuning fork gyroscope. An exact solution to TED in such devices is obtained and its Debye peak is identified. Compared with its counterpart in a beam resonator of same dimensions, the Debye peak is shifted by a proof mass. For the current design and fabrication process, the measured data from four batches prove that TED is a dominant loss source. Batch-to-batch variation in the combination of support loss and surface loss indicates that surface loss is comparable to support loss.

[1]  B. S. Berry,et al.  Anelastic Relaxation in Crystalline Solids , 1972 .

[2]  Farrokh Ayazi,et al.  Micromachined inertial sensors , 1998, Proc. IEEE.

[3]  M. Roukes,et al.  Thermoelastic damping in micro- and nanomechanical systems , 1999, cond-mat/9909271.

[4]  T. Kenny,et al.  Quality factors in micron- and submicron-thick cantilevers , 2000, Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems.

[5]  F. Ayazi,et al.  An analytical model for support loss in micromachined beam resonators with in-plane flexural vibrations , 2003 .

[6]  F. Ayazi,et al.  High Performance Matched-Mode Tuning Fork Gyroscope , 2006, 19th IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems.