Ultraviolet-LIGA-based fabrication and characterization of a nonresonant drive-mode vibratory gyro/accelerometer

A dual-purpose nonresonant 2-degrees of freedom (DOF) drive-mode and 1-DOF sense-mode vibratory gyro/accelerometer fabricated using the economical ultraviolet-lithographie-galvanoformung-abformung (UV-LIGA) fabrication process using SU-8 photoresist is reported. The dual-purpose device presented is capable of detecting acceleration at the lower-frequency band and angular rate at the operating frequency band thereby functioning as both accelerometer and gyroscope. This is achieved by designing the structure such that the frequency response of the drive oscillator has two drive resonances with a flat zone between them, while the sense oscillator has one resonance, which is deliberately placed in the flat region between the two drive resonances. For angular rate detection, the device is operated in the flat zone at the sense resonance frequency at which the device is less susceptible to frequency variations due to both environmental variation and fabrication imperfections and hence is said to be operating in robust mode. The steady-state response and discrimination for angular rate and acceleration sensing have been devised using analytical modeling. The fabrication process is optimized to realize a gyro/accelerometer that has a 9- μ m -thick nickel structural layer and 4- μ m capacitive gaps. The overall miniature device size is 2.0  mm×1.9  mm . The experimental frequency response of the fabricated devices shows drive-mode resonances at 2.85 and 4.96 kHz and sense resonance at 3.85 kHz compared to the respective design values of drive-mode resonance frequencies 2.97 and 4.81 kHz and sense resonance frequency of 4 kHz. To demonstrate the dual-purpose capability of the device, acceleration characterization has been carried out and presented. The fabricated sensor is packaged in a ceramic package and interfaced with a MS3110 differential capacitive read out IC to characterize the acceleration response of the sensor, using an out-of-plane shaker. The bandwidth for acceleration detection is found to be 10 to 100 Hz and the sensitivity of the sensor at 30 Hz is found to be 57  mV/g .