Quartz Crystal Double-Ended Tuning Fork Resonator for High Resolution Force Sensing

This paper reports a novel piezoelectric quartz crystal double-ended tuning fork (DETF) resonator with vibration attenuation structure, which is suitable for high resolution force sensing. The DETF resonator was designed to work in the fundamental flexure mode, and manufactured along the Y direction based on the Z-cut quartz crystal wafer using photolithographic and anisotropic chemical etching of quartz crystal. The resonance frequency of the DETF resonator is 39.1KHz. Vibration amplitude of the DETF resonator was measured and the experimental results show that vibration amplitude of the joint of DETF resonator is almost three orders of magnitude lower than that of midpoint of DETF, and the quality factor is up to 7750 at ambient condition and 59600 in vacuum, respectively.