Novel Simulation of a Voltage-Driven Electro-Thermo-Mechanical MEMS Self-Oscillator

S. Ouenzerfi [1,2,3], H.A.C. Tilmans [2], S. El-Borgi[3,4], X. Rottenberg [2]
[1] KACST-Intel Consortium Center of Excellence in Nano-manufacturing Applications (CENA), Riyadh, KSA
[2] IMEC, Leuven, Belgium
[3] Applied Mechanics and Systems Research Laboratory, Tunisia Polytechnic School, University of Carthage, La Marsa, Tunesia
[4] Texas A&M University at Qatar, Mechanical Engineering Program, Engineering Building, Doha, Qatar
发布日期 2013

This paper presents the modeling and simulation of electro-thermo-mechanical self-oscillators, an emerging type of M/NEMS-enabled timing devices in which sustaining electronic amplifiers are not required for their operation. Indeed, they realize amplification in the mechanical domain and feedback by crossing three physical domains: electrical, thermal and mechanical. In a previous work [1], we proposed a new model to study such kind of MEMS oscillator. We demonstrated also the possible self-oscillation in case of the more attractive and practical direct voltage pumping for devices with a positive piezoresistive coefficient. In this poster, we present a novel COMSOL Multiphysics® finite element model for an electro-thermo-mechanic self-oscillator and according simulations that support our theoretical developments.A complete simulation to describe the behavior of self-oscillation is also presented in this work.