A Dual-Mode Microelectromechanical Resonant Temperature sensor

In this paper, a dual-mode (DM) micromechanical elliptical ring resonator for use in temperature sensing is reported. The proposed resonator is made of single crystal silicon and works based on beat frequency (fb). In the designed sensor, temperature coefficient of beat frequency (TCfb) will be increased significantly by minimizing the fb and provides a better temperature sensitivity. This proposed device was designed and simulated by COMSOL Multyphysics software. By engineering the device geometry, we introduce two adjacent resonant frequencies which produce very small fb in the range of 2 kHz. The device shows TCf1 of about 44 ppm/ºC and TCf2 of 5 ppm/ºC. Combination of small fb and large ΔTCf, present temperature coefficient of beat frequency (TCfb) about 112000 ppm/ºC which has approximately 75×improvement in TCfb compared to previous demonstrated DM resonators.

Keywords:

Temperature sensing , Dual-mode (DM) resonator , Beat frequency , Microelectromechanical systems , MEMS.