Method for making micromechanical structures having at least one lateral, small gap therebetween and micromechanical device produced thereby
First Claim
1. A method for making micromechanical structures having at least one lateral gap therebetween, the method comprising:
- providing a substrate;
surface micromachining the substrate to form a capacitively-driven, lateral micromechanical structure having a first vertical sidewall and a sacrificial spacer layer on the first vertical sidewall;
forming a first capacitive transducer electrode on the substrate, the first capacitive transducer electrode including a second vertical sidewall separated from the first vertical sidewall by the spacer layer; and
removing the spacer layer to form a first lateral submicron capacitive gap between the micromechanical structure and the first capacitive transducer electrode to increase electromechanical coupling therebetween.
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Abstract
A method and resulting formed device are disclosed wherein the method combines polysilicon surface-micromachining with metal electroplating technology to achieve a capacitively-driven, lateral micromechanical resonator with submicron electrode-to-resonator capacitor gaps. Briefly, surface-micromachining is used to achieve the structural material for a resonator, while conformal metal-plating is used to implement capacitive transducer electrodes. This technology makes possible a variety of new resonator configurations, including disk resonators and lateral clamped-clamped and free-free flexural resonators, all with significant frequency and Q advantages over vertical resonators. In addition, this technology introduces metal electrodes, which greatly reduces the series resistance in electrode interconnects, thus, minimizing Q-loading effects while increasing the power handling ability of micromechanical resonators.
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Citations
7 Claims
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1. A method for making micromechanical structures having at least one lateral gap therebetween, the method comprising:
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providing a substrate;
surface micromachining the substrate to form a capacitively-driven, lateral micromechanical structure having a first vertical sidewall and a sacrificial spacer layer on the first vertical sidewall;
forming a first capacitive transducer electrode on the substrate, the first capacitive transducer electrode including a second vertical sidewall separated from the first vertical sidewall by the spacer layer; and
removing the spacer layer to form a first lateral submicron capacitive gap between the micromechanical structure and the first capacitive transducer electrode to increase electromechanical coupling therebetween. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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Specification