Vibration Transmission and Support Loss in MEMS Sensors

Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) sensors are used in an increasing range of applications such as inertial guidance or automotive safety systems, in which damping has a significant and negative effect on the device performances. Support loss, which governs the losses from the resonator to its foundation through the supporting structure, is an important source of damping in MEMS resonators. This thesis focuses on improving an understanding of this particular damping mechanism so that efficient models can be developed to predict the amount and relative importance of support loss at the design stage. The coupling between resonator and support is of principal interest to evaluate the interaction and energy transmission between them. To quantify the stresses acting on the support, a model that predicts vibration transmission through common MEMS structures is first developed. A general wave propagation approach for the vibration analysis of networks consisting of slender, straight and curved beam elements and complete ring is presented. The analysis is based on a ray tracing method and a procedure to predict the natural frequencies and mode shapes of complex ring/beam structures is demonstrated. An analytical method is then used to model the support, approximated to a semi-infinite domain, and quantify support losses. The work focuses mainly on in-plane vibrations for single-axis gyroscopes. However, new generation of multi-axis resonators is being currently developed, and the in-plane models are extended to cope with out-of-plane vibration transmission and support loss. To illustrate the effectiveness of the models, several numerical examples are presented, by applying them first to simple beam-like structures and subsequently to structures of increasing complexity. Strategies for improving the quality factor of common MEMS sensors, and specific ring-based resonators designs that minimise support losses, are also considered