Design, fabrication and testing of a micromachined seismometer with NANO-G resolution

Abstract

We have designed a high resolution microseismometer by combining a low-resonant-frequency, high-quality-factor suspension with a sensitive lateral capacitive transducer under electromagnetic feedback control. It has been fabricated and tested to demonstrate for the first time a micromachined seismometer capable of resolving the Earth's ambient seismicity and with the best acceleration resolution of any micromachined device to date, with a self noise down to 4ng/√(Hz).