- Title
- A low-loss MEMS tunable capacitor with movable dielectric
- Creator
- Zhu, Y.; Yuce, M. R.; Moheimani, S. O. R.
- Relation
- 8th IEEE Conference on SENSORS (SENSORS 2009). Proceedings of the IEEE SENSORS 2009 Conference (Christchurch, New Zealand 25-28 October, 2009) p. 651-654
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICSENS.2009.5398334
- Publisher
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2009
- Description
- This paper reports a MEMS tunable capacitor with a new actuation principle. The new design adopts electrostatic actuation of an electrically floating movable dielectric. This enables us to achieve a high Q factor by eliminating the loss associated with springs in the RF signal path. Also, the design can achieve a high tuning range, by using additional actuation combs and thus eliminating the pull-in effect. Since no DC bias is applied on the plates of variable capacitor, the parallel plates 1/3 gap limitation does not apply. The designed devices were fabricated in a SOI MEMS process, with a 25 μm thick device layer and minimum gap of 2 μm. Measurement results show that the tunable capacitor has a 135 fF initial capacitance with a tuning range of 367% and a Q factor of 56 at 1 GHz by bi-directional actuation.
- Subject
- Q factor; capacitors; electrostatic actuators; elemental semiconductors; micromechanical devices; silicon; silicon-on-insulator; tuning
- Identifier
- uon:8688
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/918727
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781424453351
- Rights
- Copyright © 2009 IEEE. Reprinted from the Proceedings of the IEEE SENSORS 2009 Conference. This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of the IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of University of Newcastle's products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to pubs-permissions@ieee.org. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it.
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