An experimental and theoretical investigation of electrostatically coupled cantilever microbeams

We present an experimental and theoretical investigation of the static and dynamic behavior of electrostatically coupled laterally actuated silicon microbeams. The coupled beam resonators are composed of two almost identical flexible cantilever beams forming the two sides of a capacitor. The experimental and theoretical analysis of the coupled system is carried out and compared against the results of beams actuated with fixed electrodes individually. The pull-in characteristics of the electrostatically coupled beams are studied, including the pull-in time. The dynamics of the coupled dual beams are explored via frequency sweeps around the neighborhood of the natural frequencies of the system for different input voltages. Good agreement is reported among the simulation results and the experimental data. The results show considerable drop in the pull-in values as compared to single microbeam resonators. The dynamics of the coupled beam resonators are demonstrated as a way to increase the bandwidth of the resonator near primary resonance as well as a way to introduce increased frequency shift, which can be promising for resonant sensing applications. Moreover the dynamic pull-in characteristics are also studied and proposed as a way to sense the shift in resonance frequency.