Dielectric transduction for MEMS resonators

Research topics >>

Summary:

Electromechanical transduction is a fundamental constituent of M/NEMS devices, especially in actuators, physical sensors and resonators. Efficiency, reliability and integration with fabrication technology are major challenges that have to be faced to exploit the transduction principles. In particular, as the device dimensions decrease down to the nanometer scale, the electromechanical transductions meet stringent difficulties. For example, the capacitive transduction suffers from low efficiencies or failures by stiction due to narrow airgaps; the piezoelectric transduction is impeded by material quality and drastic decrease of its electromechanical coupling when the piezoelectric film thickness is reduced below 100 nm.

The aim of this work is to show that a nanometer-thick dielectric material can be used as an electromechanical transducer to actuate and detect the flexural mode of micro/nanoresonators. High-quality high-K materials available in very thin films (< 10 nm) using atomic layer deposition (ALD) techniques fully compatible with silicon technologies are promising for micro and nano-electromechanical devices.

 

 

Contact:

B.Legrand
 

Collaborations:

Publication:

  • C. Fuinel, K. Daffé, A. Laborde, O. Thomas, L. Mazenq, L. Nicu, T. Leichlé, and B. Legrand, "High-K thin films as dielectric transducers for flexural M/NEMS resonators", 2016 IEEE 29th International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), doi: 10.1109/MEMSYS.2016.7421850 (2016)