Symmetry and asymmetry from MEMS variable capacitor by nonlinear micro stoppers

Abstract

Mechanical stoppers in MEMS capacitive systems can dramatically affect electrical performances and result in complicated mechanical dynamic responses. This paper introduces electromechanical coupling nonlinear dynamic responses in MEMS variable dual-capacitor with an effect of nonlinear and asymmetrical stoppers. We found that the capacitance in the electrical circuit system related to the first-order derivative of the output voltage on a load resistor, and the variable dual-capacitor was strongly affected by the coupling of up and down superposition instantaneous electrostatic force and limited space by the length of nonlinear stoppers. The numerical calculation results and the experimental results in our analysis based on our system had a good agreement, and the numerical simulation results presented rich nonlinear impacts dynamic responses through the imposed voltage and the height of stoppers in MEMS variable dual-capacitive device. The device in operation cannot reach the 0.6 time's initial gap due to small forcing amplitude (1.026 g). However, we observed that the movable plate and stoppers (across the 0.6 time's initial gap) had fierce impacts due to big forcing amplitude (4 g) on to the device. With asymmetric stopper each impact, we also concluded that the movable plate would experience attenuations of the displacement until the moment to the next impacts. Moreover, the height of stoppers can not only result in complicated dynamic motion of the movable plate, but also can modulate a voltage of the fixed plate with its asymmetry structure.

Keywords

• nonlinear stopper
• asymmetry and symmetry
• softening effect
• mems variable capacitor
• numerical simulation