Electric field sensor with electrode interleaving vibration
An electric field sensor comprising: a substrate having a hole; a shielding electrode and a sensing electrode, disposed in the hole of the substrate; a piezoelectric bar having one end connected to the center of the shielding electrode, the other end fixed on the substrate. Present invention provides several electric field sensors, which have the same feature of utilizing electrodes interleaving vibration to modulate external electric field. They have IC-compatible operation voltage and small volume.
This invention relates to an electric field sensor, particularly to the electric field sensor with an electrode interleaving vibration.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONElectric field sensors (EFSs) have significant importance for many applications. For example, accurate measurements made in different altitude by Electric Field Sensors provide important information in the study of weather phenomena such as thunderstorms. The EFSs are also used to monitor the electric field generated by power line. The EFSs widely used today are based on traditional mechanical technology, which have the advantages of high precision, but with large volume and high power consumption. There are also some miniature EFSs using laterally electrostatic comb-drive, which have small volume but need high driving voltage.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONIt is an object of the present invention to provide an electric field sensor with electrode interleaving vibration which can increase the output signal of the sensor.
In order to accomplish the above object, an electric field sensor comprising:
a substrate having a hole;
a shielding electrode and a sensing electrode, disposed in the hole of the substrate;
a piezoelectric bar having one end connected to the center of the shielding electrode, the other end fixed on the substrate.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The electric field sensor can be fabricated by Micro-electromechanical System (MEMS) technology, or MEMS technology combined with precise mechanical fabrication technology. To be operated under Integrated Circuit (IC)—compatible voltage, suitable driving method may be chosen such as piezoelectric actuation or thermal actuation. Three typical EFSs are described as examples in this invention: one is the piezoelectric bar, and other ones are thermal actuators.
The piezoelectric bar 3 has the advantage of achieving large displacement under low driving voltage. As the piezoelectric bar 3 is applied with AC voltage, it can drive the shielding electrode 1 to vibrate up and down along z-direction, which results in the interleaving vibration between shielding electrode 1 and sensing electrode 2.
The substrate 7 can be designed to have any kinds of shapes such as rectangle, round, echelon and so forth. The substrate can be made from glass or other nonconductive materials. If substrate 7 is made from conductor such as metal, it ought to be grounded and be insulated from sensing electrode 2.
Both shielding electrode 1 and sensing electrode 2 are made from conductors or other conductive materials such as doping silicon. The piezoelectric bar 3 can be fixed on the substrate by colloidal material 116, and also can use other fixed methods such as bonding as long as piezoelectric bar 3 can be fixed.
Other materials such as shape memory alloy may also be adopted for substituting the piezoelectric bar 3.
In
As a driving voltage is applied to the anchor 25 and anchor 26, Ohmic heating causes the clamp-clamp beam 24 to expand due to a positive thermal coefficient of expansion. The clamp-clamp beam 24 buckles upwards because there is a hump at the center of the beam 24. As the driving voltage is stopped, the clamp-clamp beam 24 could shrink and recover to original shape.
The top surface of shielding electrode 21 is designed to be a little lower than the top surface of the sensing electrode 22, which is to form interleaving vibration. As a rectangle-wave voltage U is applied to the anchor 25 and -U is applied to the anchor 26, the center of clamp-clamp beam 24 is set to zero electric potential since the driving voltage U and -U are equivalent in amplitude and opposite in sine. The clamp-clamp beams 24 actuates the shielding electrode 21 to vibrate up and down along z-direction, which leads to the interleaving vibration between the shielding electrode 21 and the sensing electrode 22. It is also doable to substitute the rectangle-wave voltage with sine voltage.
The substrate 27 can be made from silicon with an insulating layer such as Silicon Nitride, or be made from other insulating materials. The shielding electrode 21, sensing electrode 22, and the clamp-clamp beam 24 can be made from polysilicon or other conductive materials.
There is no limitation for the shape of anchors 25, 26, which can be square, rectangle, round, triangle and so forth. On the surface of the anchor, there is a layer of metal for bonding.
In order to increase the vibration frequency of the clamp-clamp beam, which results in an increase of current signal at the sensing electrode, it is recommended not to design the beam with large width and thickness.
The
There are also other options for the number of anchors such as 1) in
As anchors 314 are grounded, anchor 312 and 313 are respectively applied across driving voltage U and -U, the connector keeps zero electric potential due to 1) the average value of U and -U is always zero. 2) the anchors 314 are grounded. As a result, the end of U-shaped thermal actuator, where the top layer and bottom layer are connected, vibrates up and down periodically.
If the vibrating track of end of U-shaped thermal actuator is concerned, the vibrating track isn't a straight line but an arc. Although this nonstraight line track is acceptable for EFSs, we also can make some modify to obtain straight line track. We use a pair of U-shaped thermal actuators connected with a beam 315, as shown in
In
On the substrate, we can also add some pairs of U-shaped thermal actuators to support the shielding electrode, which are parallel to the existed U-shaped thermal actuators (the added actuators are not shown)
For above EFSs with thermal actuation of
It is also feasible to use electromagnetic actuation with external magnetic field.
It is also doable to use other actuation structures such as piezoelectric actuation structure, electrostatic actuation structures or other actuation structures to substitute the thermal actuation.
Claims
1. An electric field sensor comprising:
- A substrate having a hole;
- A shielding electrode and a sensing electrode, disposed in the hole of the substrate;
- A piezoelectric bar having one end connected to the center of the shielding electrode, the other end fixed on the substrate.
2. The electric field sensor according to claim 1, wherein said the sensing electrode has a rectangle rim with comb fingers inside, the shielding electrode is a comb shape.
3. The electric field sensor according to claim 1, further comprising
- colloidal material interposed between the substrate and the other end of the piezoelectric bar.
4. The electric field sensor according to claim 1, wherein said the shape of the substrate can be rectangle, round, echelon or other shapes.
5. The electric field sensor according to claim 1, wherein said shielding electrode and said sensing electrode are made of conductors.
6. The electric field sensor according to claim 5, wherein said conductor is doping silicon.
7. The electric field sensor according to claim 1, wherein said piezoelectric bar is a shape memory alloy.
8. An electric field sensor comprising:
- a substrate having an insulating surface;
- at least two anchors being fixed on the insulating surface;
- at least two thermal actuators integrated with the anchors.
- a shielding electrode and a sensing electrode being comb shape, the shielding electrode supported by the thermal actuators.
9. The electric field sensor according to claim 8, wherein said thermal actuators are made of polysilicon or other conductive materials.
10. The electric field sensor according to claim 8, wherein said the shape of anchors is square, rectangle, round or triangle and any other shape.
11. The electric field sensor according to claim 8, wherein said top surface of shielding electrode is lower than said top surface of sensing electrode.
12. The electric field sensor according to claim 8, wherein said shielding electrode and thermal actuators are integrated.
13. The electric field sensor according to claim 8, wherein said thermal actuators being clamp-clamp beam.
14. The electric field sensor according to claim 13, wherein at least one clamp-clamp beam for supporting the shielding electrode,
15. The electric field sensor according to claim 8, wherein said thermal actuator being a U-shape thermal actuators.
16. The electric field sensor according to claim 14, wherein said U-shape thermal actuator consisted of top layer, bottom layer and connector.
17. The electric field sensor according to claim 15, wherein said connector sandwiched between the top layer and bottom layer.
18. The electric field sensor according to claim 14, wherein a beam connected to the top layer between each pair of thermal actuators.
19. The electric field sensor according to claim 14, further comprising:
- adding a new beam under the original beam, which is connected to the bottom layer.
20. The electric field sensor according to claim 18, wherein said new beam connected to the bottom layer between each pair of thermal actuators, while the original beam would be deleted.
21. The electric field sensor according to claim 15, wherein said the top layer and bottom layer being made of polysilicon.
22. The electric field sensor according to claim 15, wherein said at least one U-shaped thermal actuator for supporting the shielding electrode.
23. The electric field sensor according to claim 8, wherein said thermal actuator being an electromagnetic actuator.
24. The electric field sensor according to claim 8, wherein said actuation includes piezoelectric actuation, electrostatic actuation and magnetic actuation.
Type: Application
Filed: Jun 5, 2006
Publication Date: Dec 14, 2006
Inventors: Shanhong Xia (Beijing), Chao Ye (Beijing), Chao Gong (Beijing), Xianxiang Chen (Beijing), Qiang Bai (Beijing), Shaofeng Chen (Beijing)
Application Number: 11/446,781
International Classification: G01N 27/00 (20060101);