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Published on: August 15, 2014
Gas Damping in Capacitive MEMS Transducers in the Free Molecular Flow Regime
Boris A Boom1, Alessandro Bertolini1, Eric Hennes1
1National Institute for Subatomic Physics, Science Park 105, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
We present a novel analysis of gas damping in capacitive MEMS transducers that is based on a simple analytical model, assisted by Monte-Carlo simulations performed in Molflow+ to obtain an estimate for the geometry dependent gas diffusion time. This combination provides results with minimal computational expense and through freely available software, as well as insight into how the gas damping depends on the transducer geometry in the molecular flow regime. The results can be used to predict damping for arbitrary gas mixtures. The analysis was verified by experimental results for both air and helium atmospheres and matches these data to within 15% over a wide range of pressures.
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