Tuning forks in silicon

Abstract

The authors describe microfabricated tuning forks in silicon, which are excited electrodynamically. The pressure dependence of the resonance frequency and the Q-factor was measured by an interferometer over a range of pressure 1 mu bar to 2 bar. It is shown that micromachined structures in silicon have Q-factors which are comparable to those of similar quartz structures.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>