A tunable mechanical resonator

This paper presents a tunable comb resonator by mechanically altering the suspension configuration to change its spring constant. The change of the stiffness of the resonator is achieved using electrostatic MEMS actuators. The MEMS actuators mechanically change the length of the beams to increase their spring constant and therefore the resonant frequency. The resonant frequency changed from the original value of 10.8 kHz to 17.6 kHz and 21.4 kHz depending on the spring configuration. The tunable mechanical resonator has been designed numerically using Coventorware and validated with experimental characterization. The device is built using a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process.