Clark T.-C. Nguyen (Advisor)

While silicon has been the workhorse for much of the MEMS sensor industry, it has its shortcomings when compared to other materials that might be used, namely diamond. Diamond has advantages over silicon in Young’s modulus, quality factor, and surface inertness, all of which could contribute to improved MEMS device performance. This project specifically employs diamond to increase the velocity of resonant mechanical structures towards better performance for sensors and frequency control devices.

Project is currently funded by: Federal

This project seeks to characterize and de-mystify mechanisms behind long-term drift in MEMS-based oscillators, including ones employing various sustaining amplifiers and referenced to resonators constructed in a variety of materials, including silicon, polysilicon, AlN, diamond, and ruthenium. A measurement apparatus that suppresses unwanted sources of drift, e.g., temperature, to better focus on resonator and oscillator long-term drift will be instrumental to success and will likely entail the use of double or triple ovens, as well as environment resistant circuit design.

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Recent MEMS process advancements from our group have enabled a class of low-temperature, thin-film ruthenium RF filters that can be processed directly on top of CMOS wafers. This work seeks to demonstrate the first low-IF receiver with fully-integrated MEMS-based RF channel-select filters, which permits low power applications in high-sensitivity, narrow-band software-defined communications and cognitive radio.

Project currently funded by: Member Fees