Nowadays, the interest in an emerging field - Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) - has been increased swiftly. In fact, it has been predicted that the MEMS will be a core manufacturing technology in the near future and fundamentally change the way human and machines interact with the physical world. Among these MEMS devices, the micro-gyroscope has been received much attention due to its wide range of applications such as in missile control in the military sector, global positioning systems, crash sensors in the automotive industry and stabilization systems used in video cameras. In this thesis, the design, analysis and materials preparation of a micro-gyroscope using pizeoelectric material as the sensing element is presented....[ Read more ]

Nowadays, the interest in an emerging field - Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) - has been increased swiftly. In fact, it has been predicted that the MEMS will be a core manufacturing technology in the near future and fundamentally change the way human and machines interact with the physical world. Among these MEMS devices, the micro-gyroscope has been received much attention due to its wide range of applications such as in missile control in the military sector, global positioning systems, crash sensors in the automotive industry and stabilization systems used in video cameras. In this thesis, the design, analysis and materials preparation of a micro-gyroscope using pizeoelectric material as the sensing element is presented.

In the materials selection part of this thesis, the results of study of various piezoelectric materials are pursuited. As a result of this work, Aluminum Nitride (AlN), Zinc Oxide (ZnO) and Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) were chosen for further study due to their ease of fabrication and piezoelectric response. In the next part of this thesis, the principle of the micro-gyroscope is presented and its output voltage response is derived, calculated, and compared among the three piezoelectric materials. The calculated results show that PZT gives the largest output voltage response and hence efforts are placed on PZT in both physical modeling and materials preparation.

The physical modeling of the micro-gyroscope is investigated by measuring the output voltage characteristics of the PZT crystal and the results found are in agreement with the theoretical predictions. Moreover, the layout design with different structures are drawn to test for different approaches for the proposed micro-gyroscope. Finally, procedures and techniques of using sol-gel method are presented, from which crack-free PZT with perovskite structure can be obtained on both ITO Corning glass and silicon substrate. Therefore, the flexibility of using PZT for fabrication of the micro-gyroscope can be visualized.