Electrothermally actuated tunable clamped-guided resonant microbeams

Abstract

We present simulation and experimental investigation demonstrating active alteration of the resonant and frequency response behavior of resonators by controlling the electrothermal actuation method on their anchors. In-plane clamped-guided arch and straight microbeams resonators are designed and fabricated with V-shaped electrothermal actuators on their anchors. These anchors not only offer various electrothermal actuation options, but also serve as various mechanical stiffness elements that affect the operating resonance frequency of the structures. We have shown that for an arch, the first mode resonance frequency can be increased up to 50% of its initial value. For a straight beam, we have shown that before buckling, the resonance frequency decreases to very low values and after buckling, it increases up to twice of its initial value. These results can be promising for the realization of different wide–range tunable microresonator. The experimental results have been compared to multi-physics finite-element simulations showing good agreement among them.