The thermally driving and piezo-resistive sensing I²-BAR resonators have attracted substantial attentions due to its promising features which could be widely applied for radio frequency) applications. However, one major drawback of the I²-BAR resonators is that the thermal driving and the piezoresistive sensing signals are highly coupled which results in an excessive transmission feedthrough floor, masking thus the real resonance behaviours. In this work, a simple and effective approach to eliminate the feedthrough effect using reverse-biased PN junction is presented. The device was fabricated on a p-type silicon-on-insulator wafer with locally doped n-type regions. With proper bias voltages, the thermal driving current and the output piezoresistive current were confined inside the p-type layer and the n-type layer, respectively. With such design concept, an improvement of 50 dB feedthrough reduction was observed comparing with the conventional measurement. The resonance behaviour can thus be physically obtained without further post data processing. This research also shows that such measurement methods can be transferred to other domains where integrated thermal driving and piezoresistive sensing transductions are required.

References

1. 1)
  - 5. Rahafrooz, A., Pourkamali, S.: ‘High-frequency thermally actuated electromechanical resonators with piezoresistive readout’, Trans. Electron Dev., 2011, 58, (4), pp. 1205–1214 (doi: 10.1109/TED.2011.2105491).
2. 2)
  - 13. Xiong, Z., Walter, B., Mairiaux, E., et al: ‘MEMS piezoresistive ring resonator for AFM imaging with pico-newton force’, J. Micromech. Microeng., 2013, 23, p. 035016 (doi: 10.1088/0960-1317/23/3/035016).
3. 3)
  - 11. Sankar, A.R., Jency, J.G., Ashwini, J., et al: ‘Realisation of silicon piezoresistive accelerometer with proof mass-edge-aligned-flexures using wet anisotropic etching’, Micro Nano Lett., 2012, 2, (7), pp. 118–122 (doi: 10.1049/mnl.2011.0717).
4. 4)
  - 3. Rahafrooz, A., Pourkamali, S.: ‘Fabrication and characterization of thermally actuated micromechanical resonators for airborne particle mass sensing: I. Resonator design and modeling’, J. Micromech. Microeng., 2010, 20, (12), p. 125018 (doi: 10.1088/0960-1317/20/12/125018).
5. 5)
  - 8. Beardslee, L.A., Addous, A.M., Heinrich, S., et al: ‘Thermal excitation and piezoresistive detection of cantilever in-plane resonance modes for sensing applications’, J. Microelectromech. Syst., 2010, 19, (4), pp. 1015–1017 (doi: 10.1109/JMEMS.2010.2052093).
6. 6)
  - 6. Hall, H.J., Rahafrooz, A., Brown, J.J., et al: ‘Thermally actuated I-shaped electromechanical VHF resonators’. Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS2012), Paris, France, 2012, no. February, pp. 737–740.
7. 7)
  - 15. Chen, C.-C., Yu, H.-T., Li, S.-S.: ‘A balanced measurement and characterization technique for thermal-piezoresistive micromechanical resonators’, Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS2012), Paris, France, 2012, pp. 377–380.
8. 8)
  - 1. Xiong, Z., Mairiaux, E., Walter, B., et al: ‘A novel dog-bone oscillating AFM probe with thermal actuation and piezoresistive detection’, Sensors, 2014, 14, (11), pp. 20667–20686 (doi: 10.3390/s141120667).
9. 9)
  - 14. Algré, E., Xiong, Z., Faucher, M., et al: ‘MEMS ring resonators for laserless AFM with sub-nano-Newton force resolution’, J. Microelectromech. Syst., 2012, 21, (2), pp. 385–397 (doi: 10.1109/JMEMS.2011.2179012).
10. 10)
  - 2. Bontemps, J.J.M.: ‘56 MHZ piezoresistive micromechanical oscillator’. TRANSDUCERS'09, 15th Int. Conf. Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems, Denver, CO, USA, 2009, pp. 1433–1436.
11. 11)
  - 12. Hajjam, A., Wilson, J.C., Rahafrooz, A., et al: ‘Fabrication and characterization of thermally actuated micromechanical resonators for airborne particle mass sensing: II. Device fabrication and characterization’, J. Micromech. Microeng., 2010, 20, (12), p. 125019 (doi: 10.1088/0960-1317/20/12/125019).
12. 12)
  - 4. Rahafrooz, A., Pourkamali, S.: ‘Active self-Q-enhancement in high frequency thermally actuated M/NEMS resonators’. Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS2011), Cancun, Mexico, 2011, vol. 58, no. 4, pp. 760–763.
13. 13)
  - 16. ‘ROCKCHIP.’ Available at www.rock-chips.com.
14. 14)
  - 17. Cho, C.-H.: ‘Characterization of Young's modulus of silicon versus temperature using a ‘beam deflection’ method with a four-point bending fixture’, Curr. Appl. Phys., 2009, 9, (2), pp. 538–545 (doi: 10.1016/j.cap.2008.03.024).
15. 15)
  - 9. Beardslee, L.A., Lehmann, J., Carron, C., et al: ‘Thermally actuated silicon tuning fork resonators for sensing applications in air’. Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS2012), Paris, France, 2012, no. February, pp. 607–610.
16. 16)
  - 10. Arevalo, A., Conchouuso, D., Castro, D., et al: ‘Out-of-plane buckled cantilever microstructures with adjustable angular positions using thermal bimorph actuation for transducer applications’, Micro Nano Lett.., 2015, 10, (10), p. 5 (doi: 10.1049/mnl.2015.0198).
17. 17)
  - 7. Ramezany, A., Mahdavi, M., Pourkamalic, S.: ‘Nanoelectromechanical resonant narrow-band amplifiers’, Microsystems Nanoeng., 2016, 2, p. 16004 (doi: 10.1038/micronano.2016.4).

Eliminate the transmission feedthrough of thermal-piezoresistive I²-BAR MEMS resonators based on reverse-biased PN junction

References

Related content

Eliminate the transmission feedthrough of thermal-piezoresistive I2-BAR MEMS resonators based on reverse-biased PN junction

References

Related content

Eliminate the transmission feedthrough of thermal-piezoresistive I²-BAR MEMS resonators based on reverse-biased PN junction