Quality factors of MEMS gyros and the role of thermoelastic damping

Abstract

In this paper, we present new experimental data illustrating the importance of thermoelastic damping in MEMS resonant sensors. We have used MEMS gyroscopes to demonstrate that both the choice of materials and variations in device design can lead to significant differences in the measured Quality (Q) factors of the device. These differences in Q factor can be explained by including the contribution of thermoelastic damping (TED), which varies strongly between the different silicon etch-stop compositions used in this study. Known damping mechanisms such as fluid damping, anchor damping, and electronics damping are minimized and held fixed in this experiment so that materials effects can be isolated.