Characterisation of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)

 

Characterisation of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) - 1

 

A sub-station is dedicated to the characterisation of microsystem devices in order to study the properties of micro-actuators and micro-sensors. The performance of actuators based on electrostatic, thermal or piezoelectric effects is routinely measured. A set-up using current/voltage amplifiers combined with synchronous detection is used to process signals from differential capacitive micro-sensors, giving access to microstructure displacements with nanometric precision. A large part of the activity concerns the characterisation of electromechanical micro-resonators in the range from a few hundred kHz to 1 GHz, and depending on the frequency, uses synchronous detection (2 MHz max), an impedance meter (110 MHz max) or network analysers. When characterising RF microswitches, electromechanical characterisation of the microswitch actuator is coupled to microwave characterisation of the device using the characterisation methods described above.

 

A sub-station is dedicated to the characterisation of microsystem devices in order to study the properties of micro-actuators and micro-sensors. The performance of actuators based on electrostatic, thermal or piezoelectric effects is routinely measured. A set-up using current/voltage amplifiers combined with synchronous detection is used to process signals from differential capacitive micro-sensors, giving access to microstructure displacements with nanometric precision. A large part of the activity concerns the characterisation of electromechanical micro-resonators in the range from a few hundred kHz to 1 GHz, and depending on the frequency, uses synchronous detection (2 MHz max), an impedance meter (110 MHz max) or network analysers. When characterising RF microswitches, electromechanical characterisation of the microswitch actuator is combined with microwave characterisation of the device using the characterisation methods described above - 2