A MEMS-Based Electrochemical Angular Accelerometer With Integrated Plane Electrodes for Seismic Motion Monitoring

Abstract

This paper presents a MEMS based electrochemical angular accelerometer with integrated plane electrodes for seismic detection. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations were conducted to model the angular accelerometer with key geometrical parameters of the integrated plane electrodes optimized. Microfabrication was leveraged for the fabrication of the angular accelerometer, which was featured with standard fabrication processes and thus high fabrication yields. Sensitivity characterization of the MEMS based electrochemical angular accelerometer was conducted, producing a sensitivity of 10 V/(rad/s <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> ) and a 3dB bandwidth of 0.01-8Hz, which were comparable with and even better than the commercial counterpart based on conventional fabrication approaches. Furthermore, the noise levels of the developed MEMS based electrochemical angular accelerometer were quantified as 1.17 × 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-6</sup> (rad/s <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> )/Hz <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1/2</sup> @1Hz and 1.05 × 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-5</sup> (rad/s <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> )/Hz <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1/2</sup> @10Hz, which were again significantly lower than the commercial counterpart. These results indicated the potential of the developed MEMS based electrochemical angular accelerometer in seismology including natural disaster monitoring and resource exploration.