A Novel Low Voltage Electrostatic MEMS Resonator Sensor Based on Double Resonance Dynamic Amplification

In this paper, we present a new concept to couple the mechanical vibration dynamic of electrostatic MEMS sensor with its internal electrical circuit resonance. The concept shows great potential to reduce the excitation voltage for electrostatic MEMS. The proposed actuation method aims to activate the mechanical and electrical resonance of the MEMS circuit, simultaneously; to amplify the voltage across the MEMS and increase the MEMS sensitivity to the input electrostatic forces. Moreover, we propose a method to achieve this amplification for any electrostatic MEMS device regardless of the values of its electrical and mechanical resonance frequencies. The proposed concept is studied theoretically and validated experimentally for a commercial MEMS sensor. A voltage amplification of more than 21 times and a MEMS amplitude amplification of over 6 times was observed.