High-Frequency AlN-on-Silicon Resonant Square Gyroscopes

This letter reports, for the first time, on a high-frequency resonant square micro-gyroscope using piezoelectric transduction. Degenerate pairs of orthogonal flexural resonance modes are used to provide energy exchange paths for the Coriolis-based resonant gyroscope in response to z-axis rotation. Aluminum nitride thin films have been used to provide highly efficient electromechanical transduction for drive and sense modes without requiring any dc polarization voltage for operation. A proof-of-concept design consisting of a 300 μm× 300 μm square gyro shows linear rate sensitivity of 20.38 μV/°/s when operating in its first flexural mode at ~ 11 MHz.