Shkel A.M. – TechConnect Briefs

Micromachined Glass-Blown 3-D Spherical Shells as Mechanical Vibratory Elements

Prikhodko I.P., Trusov A.A., Zotov S.A., Shkel A.M., University of California Irvine, US

This paper reports a non-contact experimental characterization of resonant modes in micromachined glass-blown spherical shells, enabling new architectures of vibratory 3-D MEMS for signal processing, timing, and inertial applications. Wafer-scale glassblowing was previously developed for [...]

Elastomeric Composites to Reduce the Effects of Trunnion Mode in Inertial Devices

Perez Ma., Shkel A.M., University of California Irvine, US

Composites have long been known for their ability to combine the properties of dissimilar materials to create properties ideally tailored for an application. We propose applying these features to MEMS in order to reduce the [...]

Performance Tradeoffs in MEMS Sensors with High-Finesse Fabry-Perot Interferometry Detection

Eklund E.J., Shkel A.M., University of California Irvine, US

A detailed analysis with experimental verification is presented for optical MEMS sensors based on Fabry-Perot interferometers (FPI). These sensors consist of two partially transparent parallel plates with reflective inner surfaces, forming a cavity with an [...]

Multi-Degree of Freedom Micromachined Decoupled Gyroscope for Automotive Applications

Acar C., Painter C.C., Schofield A.R., Shkel A.M., UCI Microsystems Laboratory, US

Towards a robust sensor design for automotive systems, we introduce a novel multi-degree of freedom gyroscope system. The design offers a number of unique advantages over conventional gyroscope designs. Firstly, quadrature error is reduced due [...]

MEMS Gyroscopes with Structurally Decoupled 2-DOF Drive and Sense Mode Oscillators

Acar C., Shkel A.M., University of California Irvine, US

This paper reports a novel 4 degrees-of-freedom (DOF) non-resonant micromachined gyroscope design concept that addresses two major MEMS gyroscope design challenges: eliminating the mode-matching requirement, and minimizing instability and drift due to mechanical coupling between [...]