Mechanical resonator device having phenomena-dependent electrical stiffness
AssigneeThe Regents of the University of Michigan
InventorsClark T.-C. Nguyen, Wan-Thai Hsu
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Abstract
A mechanical resonator device which has a phenomena-dependent electrical stiffness is provided. The phenomena may be temperature or acceleration, for example. The device includes a substrate and a resonator supported above the substrate by supports. The device further includes an electrode supported above the substrate adjacent the resonator by supports to obtain an electrode-to-resonator gap wherein electrical stiffness generated across the gap is phenomena-dependent to take instability of resonant frequency of the device caused by the phenomena into consideration.
Claims30
A mechanical resonator device having a resonant frequency, the device comprising:
- a micromechanical resonator;
- and
- an electrode adjacent the micromechanical resonator to obtain an electrode-to-resonator gap wherein electrical stiffness generated across the gap is phenomena-dependent and wherein a control voltage between the electrode and the micromechanical resonator is applied to take instability of the resonant frequency caused by the phenomena into consideration rather than for excitation of the micromechanical resonator.
A micromechanical resonator device, the device comprising:
- a resonator supported by a first structure;
- and
- an electrode supported by a second structure and adjacent the resonator to obtain an electrode-to-resonator gap spacing;
- wherein the first and second structure comprise first and second materials, respectively,
- the first and second materials have differing thermal expansion coefficients;
- and
- the gap spacing varies during operation based on the differing thermal expansion coefficients.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.