An Experimental and Theoretical Investigation of Double Resonance Activation in Electrostatic MEMS Resonators

Electrostatic micro-electro-mechanical-system (MEMS) devices show great potential in a variety of applications such as sensing and actuation; however, they are hindered by their high input voltage requirement. Double resonance excitation, which activates the system’s mechanical and electrical resonances simultaneously, was recently demonstrated experimentally to alleviate this problem. In this work, we present a mathematical model, based on the Euler Bernoulli beam model coupled with a circuit model, to simulate double resonance in MEMS devices and to shed light more onto the previously published experimental data. We show good agreement between the theoretical simulation and experimental data when the electrical resonance frequency band is sufficiently high.