A 5.86 Million Quality Factor Cylindrical Resonator with Improved Structural Design Based on Thermoelastic Dissipation Analysis

Abstract

The cylindrical resonator is the core component of cylindrical resonator gyroscopes (CRGs). The quality factor (Q factor) of the resonator is one crucial parameter that determines the performance of the gyroscope. In this paper, the finite element method is used to theoretically investigate the influence of the thermoelastic dissipation (TED) of the cylindrical resonator. The improved structure of a fused silica cylindrical resonator is then demonstrated. Compared with the traditional structure, the thermoelastic Q (QTED) of the resonator is increased by 122%. In addition, the Q factor of the improved cylindrical resonator is measured, and results illustrate that, after annealing and chemical etching, the Q factor of the resonator is significantly higher than that of the cylindrical resonators reported previously. The Q factor of the cylindrical resonator in this paper reaches 5.86 million, which is the highest value for a cylindrical resonator to date.

Experimental Study on Variation of Surface Roughness and Q Factors of Fused Silica Cylindrical Resonators with Different Grinding Speeds

“…The structure of the cylindrical resonators, the configuration of the measurement system, and the measurement process are reported in our previous publication [ 16 , 18 , 42 ]. The measurement system and the cylindrical resonator are shown in Figure 1 .…”

“…In previous reports, the Q factor of the metallic and piezoelectric cylindrical resonators are generally less than 10 5 due to the materials’ characteristics [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. The authors’ group achieved a significant increase in the Q factor by fabricating cylindrical resonators with fused silica [ 16 , 17 , 18 ].…”

Fused silica cylindrical shell resonators with 25 million Q factors

“…However, theoretically other flexural mode can also be used as the working mode [26]. The structure and the n = 2 mode of the cylindrical resonator can be found in [18].…”

“…However, in previous reports, cylindrical resonators are mostly made of metallic materials and piezoelectric materials [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17], and the Q factor of the metallic cylindrical resonators are generally less than 10 5 due to the materials characteristics. Inspired by hemispherical resonators, fused silica has been used for manufacturing high-Q cylindrical resonators because of its low internal friction and high isotropy [18][19][20][21]. By improving the cylindrical resonator structure and post-processing technology, the cylindrical resonators have been fabricated by the authors' group with Q factors approaching 8 × 10 5 in 2016 and 2.89 × 10 6 in 2019 [20,21], which are the highest values reported for cylindrical resonators at that time.…”

Recent Advances in MEMS-Based 3D Hemispherical Resonator Gyroscope (HRG)—A Sensor of Choice

“…In CVGs, the resonating mass acts as the main sensing element and the geometry of it can be of different shapes. Based on the resonating mass, these types of gyroscopes can be in the form of a string [ 4 ], a single beam [ 5 , 6 ], U-shaped tuning forks (two parallel beams) [ 7 , 8 , 9 ], rocking-mass gyroscope systems (two perpendicular in-plane beams) [ 10 , 11 ], a butterfly [ 12 , 13 ], disks [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ], cloverleaf-type disks [ 20 ], rings [ 21 , 22 , 23 ], rings with compliant spokes [ 24 ], non-continuous double rings (called folded-beam disks) [ 25 ], disks with special forms of supporting beams (called honeycomb disks) [ 26 ], cylinders [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ], cupped cylinders [ 32 ], bell-shapes [ 33 , 34 , 35 ], 3D rectangular parallelepiped gyroscopes based on special vibratory modes of solid material (e.g., thickness-shear vibrating mode) [ 36 , 37 ], pierced shallow shells [ 38 ], shallow shells [ 39 ], microbubbles (spherical caps with a radius-over-height ratio larger than one) [ 40 ], cennospheres (hollow spheres) [ 41 ], quasi-spherical forms [ 42 ], spherical shell resonator gyroscopes [ 43 , 44 ,…”