A Highly Sensitive Three Axis Piezoelectric Microaccelerometer for High Bandwidth Applications

Title:A Highly Sensitive Three Axis Piezoelectric Microaccelerometer for High Bandwidth Applications

Volume: 9 Issue: 2

Author(s): Mohammad Tahmasebipour*Ali Vafaie

Affiliation:

• Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran and Micro/Nano-Manufacturing Technologies Development Laboratory, Faculty of New sciences & Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran,Iran

Keywords: Piezoelectric accelerometer, MEMS accelerometer, high bandwidth accelerometer, three axis accelerometer, electron tunneling, low power consumption.

Abstract: Background: MEMS piezoelectric accelerometers are used in many different applications. In Some applications, accelerometers have to measure the acceleration at high frequency ranges.

Objective: Due to the inverse relation between their sensitivity and bandwidth, high-bandwidth accelerometers generally have low sensitivity. By increasing their sensitivity, these accelerometers can measure vibrations with low amplitudes in a wide frequency range.

Method: In this study, a single axis piezoelectric accelerometer with sensitivity higher than conventional accelerometers is introduced for high-bandwidth applications. The behavior of this micro-accelerometer including its resonance mode shapes, proof mass displacement amplitude, and output characteristics, as well as its stress distribution, polarity, and the electric potential generated in the piezoelectric layer are also studied by the finite element method. In addition, an idea to have a three axis accelerometer with higher sensitivity is proposed.

Results: The proposed single axis accelerometer has 0.54 mV/g sensitivity and 10 kHz bandwidth. The three axis accelerometer has 7e-3 mV/g sensitivity for acceleration in x-y plane with the same bandwidth.

Conclusion: This study proposed a piezoelectric accelerometer (based on a membrane attached to a proof mass) for high bandwidth applications with a sensitivity double that of its similar counterparts. To evaluate the performance of the proposed model, its characteristics were compared with those of a piezoelectric accelerometer with a circular membrane cross section. Although both studied structures had identical spring stiffness and proof mass, we observed that the maximum stress developed in the membrane for the proposed model is more than the circular accelerometer under a same acceleration. Therefore, the electric potential generated via the piezoelectric layer was greater in the square accelerometer.

Cite this article as:

Tahmasebipour Mohammad*, Vafaie Ali, A Highly Sensitive Three Axis Piezoelectric Microaccelerometer for High Bandwidth Applications, Micro and Nanosystems 2017; 9 (2) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1876402910666180118124845