Micromachined ac/dc electric field sensor with modulated sensitivity

Chen, T.; Shafai, Cyrus; Rajapakse, Athula D.; Liyanage, J.S.H.; Neusitzer, Thomas

doi:10.1016/j.sna.2016.04.054

Cited by 26 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…In the recent three decades, with the development of micromachining technology, a variety of EFMs have been reported [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ], which have advantages of small volume, batch producibility and low power consumption. Most of them are charge–induction-based ones, whose sensing structures mainly consist of fixed sensing electrodes and grounded movable shielding electrodes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Electric Field Microsensor with Mutual Shielding Electrodes

et al. 2021

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This paper proposes an electric field microsensor (EFM) with mutual shielding electrodes. Based on the charge-induction principle, the EFM consists of fixed electrodes and piezoelectric-driving vertically-movable electrodes. All the fixed electrodes and movable electrodes work as both sensing electrodes and shielding electrodes. In other words, all the fixed and movable electrodes are sensing electrodes, and they are mutually shielding electrodes simultaneously. The movable electrodes are driven to periodically modulate the electric field distribution at themselves and the fixed electrodes, and the induced currents from both movable and fixed electrodes are generated simultaneously. The electrode structure adopts an interdigital structure, and the EFM has been simulated by finite element methods. Simulation results show that, since the sensing area of this EFM is doubled, the variation of induced charge is twice, and therefore the output signal of the sensor is increased. The piezoelectric material, lead zirconate titanate (PZT), is prepared by the sol–gel method, and the microsensor chip is fabricated.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Electric Field Microsensor with Mutual Shielding Electrodes

et al. 2021

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“…Due to small size, low power consumption, wear avoidance, and an ability to measure both DC and AC electric fields, electric field sensors based on micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology are particularly suitable for applications in power systems [6,[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. At present, most of the reported electric field microsensors (EFMs) are based on the charge induction principle similar to the field mills.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

AC/DC Fields Demodulation Methods of Resonant Electric Field Microsensor

Yang

Chu

et al. 2020

Micromachines

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Electric field microsensors have the advantages of a small size, a low power consumption, of avoiding wear, and of measuring both direct-current (DC) and alternating-current (AC) fields, which are especially suited to applications in power systems. However, previous reports were chiefly concerned with proposing new structures or improving the resolution, and there are no systematic studies on the signal characteristics of the microsensor output and the demodulation methods under different electric fields. In this paper, the use of an improved resonant microsensor with coplanar electrodes, and the signal characteristics under a DC field, power frequency field, and AC/DC hybrid fields were thoroughly analyzed respectively, and matching demodulation methods derived from synchronous detection were proposed. We theoretically obtained that the frequencies of the detectable electric fields should be less than half of the resonant frequency of the microsensor, and that the sensitivities of the microsensor were identical for AC/DC hybrid fields with different frequencies. Experiments were conducted to verify the proposed demodulation methods. Within electric field ranges of 0–667 kV/m, the uncertainties were 2.4% and 1.5% for the most common DC and 50 Hz power frequency fields, respectively. The frequency characteristic test results of the microsensor were in agreement with those of the theoretical analysis in the range of 0–1 kHz.

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“…However, their shielding shutter is affected by high fields, leading to incorrect measurements. In [8], a vertical vibrating electric field sensor was presented that modulated the electrostatic force from an incident dc field using an ac bias on the sensing membrane. This enabled controllable sensitivity, without the measurement limit in the presence of high fields.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Torsional Moving Electric Field Sensor with Modulated Sensitivity and without Reference Ground

Liyanage

Shafai

Chen

et al. 2017

Proceedings of Eurosensors 2017, Paris, France, 3–6 September 2017

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Abstract:A MEMS electric field sensor is presented with wide measurement resolution and adjustable sensitivity. The sense membrane is mounted using torsional springs and employs opposite biased electrodes on its surface, causing rotation in presence of an electric field, enabling operation without reference ground. Control of electrode bias enables adjustable linear measurement range from V/m to MV/m. Compared to earlier works with vertical moving sense membranes, higher sensitivity is achieved for the same bias voltage. Employing on-board electronics to enable independent resonant operation, a noise limited resolution of 3 V/m was achieved.

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Micromachined ac/dc electric field sensor with modulated sensitivity

Cited by 26 publications

References 12 publications

An Electric Field Microsensor with Mutual Shielding Electrodes

An Electric Field Microsensor with Mutual Shielding Electrodes

AC/DC Fields Demodulation Methods of Resonant Electric Field Microsensor

Torsional Moving Electric Field Sensor with Modulated Sensitivity and without Reference Ground

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