Nanotechnology Department

FOURTH YEAR
FUNDAMENTALS OF NANO SYSTEMS

Sheet 3
*Problems are from Foundation of MEMS, Second Edition text book. (Some problems may have slight changes.)

Problem 3, Ch. 4
An air-gap capacitor is made with two parallel planar plates; one is fixed (the bottom one) and the other
(on the top) is movable. The media between the two plates is air. At rest, the distance between two
parallel plates is x0= 70 m, and the areas of plates are A= 300 x 300 m2. The movable plate is held at
rest with a mechanical force of 1.8 x 10-9 N in the upward direction. The biasing voltage is applied
between these two plates. Calculate the value of the capacitance at rest. What should be the minimum
amount of voltage to be applied between plates to generate a downward force (pull-in force) to move
the upper plate by some distance?
Problem 7, Ch. 4
A parallel plate capacitor is suspended by two fixed-guided cantilever beams, each with length, width
and thickness denoted l, w and t, respectively as shown in figure 1 below. The material is polysilicon
with a Youngs modulus of 120 GPa. (l= 300 m, w= 10 m, and t= .5 m). The gap x0 between two
plates is 2 m. The area of the plates is 400 m by 400 m. Calculate the safety voltage (maximum
voltages to be applied to ensure that the two plates do not touch each other.
Problem 14, Ch. 4
Draw the masks used in the fabrication process of the pressure sensor with a sealed cavity shown in
figure 2.
Problem 17, Ch. 4
For the shear stress sensor device in Case 4.5, derive an analytical expression of the displacement d
under a given shear stress, if the distributed drag force on the cantilevers are ignored. In other words,
consider only the drag force on the floating plate. Based on the expression, identify three key strategies
for increasing sensitivity. Discuss the impact on fabrication associated with each strategy
Problem 24, Ch. 4
Derive the analytical expression of capacitive sensitivity with respect to changes in x for the transverse
comb-drive device. For simplicity, ignore the fringe capacitance. Discuss at least two strategies for
increasing the sensitivity.
Problem 25, Ch. 4
Derive an analytical expression of capacitive sensitivity with respect to changes in the overlapped
distance lo for the longitudinal comb-drive device. Discuss at least two strategies for increasing the
sensitivity.

Nanotechnology Department
FOURTH YEAR
FUNDAMENTALS OF NANO SYSTEMS

Problem 29, Ch. 4

A capacitive pressure sensor uses an elastic diaphragm as one of the parallel plates. The area (A) of
diaphragm is 100 x 100 m2 and thickness is t= 2 m. The distance between the bottom of the
diaphragm and the other plates is d = 1 m. The diaphragm has stiffness of 187.5 N/m. Capacitive
change the applied pressure is measured by the capacitive bridge circuit with the sensor connected to
one of the arms of the bridge. When a certain pressure is applied to the diaphragm, the capacitor value
calculated from the bridge output shows an increase in the capacitor by 120 x 10-15 F compared to the
capacitance without pressure applied, find the pressure applied.
*Review Example 4.2, 4.3 & 4.4

Figure 1

Figure 2