Amplitude- and gas pressure-dependent nonlinear damping of high-Q oscillatory MEMS micro mirrors

TL;DR

This paper investigates nonlinear damping in high-Q MEMS micro mirrors, revealing amplitude depletion phenomena linked to gas pressure, and introduces a model explaining these effects with experimental validation.

Contribution

It presents the first experimental evidence of amplitude-dependent nonlinear damping in MEMS micro mirrors and models this behavior considering gas pressure effects.

Findings

Nonlinear damping causes amplitude depletion inconsistent with linear models.

Gas pressure significantly influences the nonlinear damping behavior.

The proposed model accurately predicts experimental observations.

Abstract

Silicon-based micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) can be fabricated using bulk and surface micromachining technology. A micro mirror designed as an oscillatory MEMS constitutes a prominent example. Typically, in order to minimize energy consumption, the micro mirror is designed to have high quality factors. In addition, a phase-locked loop guarantees resonant actuation despite the occurrence of frequency shifts. In these cases, the oscillation amplitude of the micro mirror is expected to scale linearly with the actuation input power. Here, however, we report on an experimental observation which clearly shows an amplitude depletion that is not in accordance with any linear behaviour. As a consequence, the actuation forces needed to reach the desired oscillation amplitude are by multiples higher than expected. We are able to explain the experimental observations accurately by introducing a single degree-of-freedom model including an amplitude-dependent nonlinear damping term. Remarkably, we find that the nonlinear damping shows a clear gas pressure dependency. We investigate the concepts and compare our findings on two different micro mirror design layouts.