Small-scale and distortion-free measurement of electric fields is crucial
for applications such as surveying atmospheric electrostatic fields, lightning
research, and safeguarding areas close to high-voltage power lines. A variety of
measurement systems exist, the most common of which are field mills, which work
by picking up the differential voltage of the measurement electrodes while
periodically shielding them with a grounded electrode. However, all current
approaches are either bulky, suffer from a strong temperature dependency, or
severely distort the electric field requiring a well-defined surrounding and
complex calibration procedures. Here we show that microelectromechanical system
(MEMS) devices can be used to measure electric field strength without
significant field distortion. The purely passive MEMS devices exploit the effect
of electrostatic induction, which is used to generate internal forces that are
converted into an optically tracked mechanical displacement of a
spring-suspended seismic mass. The devices exhibit resolutions on the order of
100(V/m)/Hz with a measurement range of up to tens of
kilovolt per metre in the quasi-static regime (≲ 300 Hz).We also show
that it should be possible to achieve resolutions of around
∼1(V/m)/Hz by fine-tuning of the sensor embodiment. These
MEMS devices are compact and could easily be mass produced for wide
application.
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