JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 25, NO.
1, FEBRUARY 2016
Resonant Inductive Coupling-Based Piston Position
Sensing Mechanism for Large Vertical
Displacement Micromirrors
Victor Farm-Guoo Tseng, Member, IEEE, and Huikai Xie, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract This paper serves to demonstrate resonant
inductive coupling-based eddy current sensing as a promising
piston position sensing mechanism for large vertical displacement
micromirrors that exhibit piston scan ranges above 100 m. The
sensor consists of two microfabricated coils packaged underneath
the mirror plate of an electrothermally actuated piston scanning
micromirror. For this paper, position sensing is achieved through
the amplitude detection of the sensor oscillation signal due to the
change in inductive coupling between the coils when the mirror
plate undergoes its piston scan. Two sensing regions could be
obtained: a front slope region that has a larger piston sensing
range of 1 mm with a 280-nm resolution and a back slope region
that has higher sensitivity over a smaller piston sensing range
of 130 m with a 20-nm resolution. For demonstration purpose,
the sensing coils are designed to oscillate at 9.4 MHz through
a regenerative circuit and a readout circuit was used to extract
the piston position information, with which the static, dynamic,
and frequency response of the micromirror were measured. This
paper also presents the fundamental electromagnetic analytical
modeling for the sensor performance. [2015-0223]
Index Terms Inductive position sensing, eddy currents,
sensing coil, resonant inductive coupling, electromagnetic image
theory, piston scanning micromirror.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HE UTILIZATION of large vertical displacement (LVD)
MEMS microactuators [1][4] as the linear scanning
movable mirror in Fourier transform spectrometers (FTS)
offers a great potential for FTS system miniaturization such
that miniaturized, portable material analysis tools can be
constructed [1], [5][7]. In MEMS FTS systems, it is desired
for the mirror plate to have a large and linear piston scan
range (above 100 m) to achieve high spectral resolution,
but at the same time have very small tilting (below 0.01)
to minimize misalignment issues [8]. Ultimately, closed-loop
control of the mirror plate position is necessary, which requires
a suitable position sensor to be integrated with the micromirror
device to monitor the mirror plate position. Specifically, in this
work, an inductive position sensor is developed and applied to
Manuscript received August 11, 2015; revised October 11, 2015; accepted
October 26, 2015. Date of publication November 22, 2015; date of current
version February 1, 2016. This work was supported by the National Science
Foundation through the Division of Electrical, Communications, and Cyber
Systems under Grant 1002209. Subject Editor C. Rembe.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA (e-mail:
vfgtseng@gmail.com; hkx@ufl.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JMEMS.2015.2499301
1057-7157 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
207
an electrothermally actuated LVD micromirror that has been
previously demonstrated [9]. The particular electrothermal
LVD micromirror used in this study can achieve a piston
scan range up to 450 m while having a small tilt angle
(0.7) with a relatively small driving voltage and power
(5.5 V, 300 mW).
To monitor the piston position of such electrothermal
LVD micromirrors, the position sensor must have a large
piston sensing range (hundreds of microns) with suitable
resolution (as low as 50 nm for 1/20 of infrared wavelengths).
The sensing bandwidth should also cover static position
changes as well as motions up to a few kHz. Most importantly,
the sensor should be cost effective. Four quadrant parallel
plate electrodes [10] or comb finger based capacitive position
sensing [11] provides satisfying resolution [12], but the capac-
itance change would be too small compared to parasitic capac-
itances due to the large distance from the mirror plate to any
possible surrounding sensing electrodes, thus posing a great
challenge for the interface circuitry. Piezoresistive position
sensing [13], [14] becomes nonlinear for large displacements,
and is also temperature sensitive, making it incompatible
with the targeted electrothermal micromirror. Optical position
sensing [15], [16] provides suitable performance, but requires
a very complicated assembly. It is also not desired to have
sensing coils embedded within the mirror plate [17], [18]
due to the difficulty in scaling down the coils. Interestingly,
in 1990, a large scale mirror assembly for precise beam
steering applications was demonstrated by Loney [19], which
utilizes inductive eddy current sensing to monitor the mirror
plate position. Inductive eddy current based position sensing
has the desired performance due to its large sensing range
(near the coil size), requires no coils on the mirror plate, can
achieve nanometer resolution, covers a motion bandwidth from
DC up to tens of kHz, and is relatively simple to construct.
However, it has not yet been demonstrated in microscale
devices.
Therefore, the endeavor of this work is to demonstrate
inductive position sensing as a potential position sensing
mechanism for LVD micromirrors. Expanding on our previous
work [20], [21], the details on the fundamental modeling,
design, fabrication, and measurements of the inductive position
sensor, as well as the interface and readout circuitry are
hereby presented. By placing sensing coils beneath the
mirror plate, a large piston sensing range of hundreds of
microns can be achieved by amplitude detection of the sensor
208 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 25, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2016

Fig. 1. Illustration of the inductive position sensor with the LVD micromirror: Fig. 2. Operation principle of the inductive position sensor: (a) coupling not
(a) schematic of the assembly with the mirror plate above the sensing coils, affected by the mirror plate, (b) coupling enhanced by EM shielding effect.
(b) picture of the targeted electrothermal LVD micromirror device to be
measured.

oscillation signal, which is due to the change in resonant

inductive coupling between the coils when the mirror plate
undergoes piston scan.
II. O PERATION P RINCIPLE AND D ESIGN
An illustration of the inductive position sensor assembled
with the targeted electrothermal LVD micromirror device is
shown in Fig. 1(a). An SEM picture of the LVD micromirror
employed in this study is shown in Fig. 1(b), which will be
further introduced in Section IV. The inductive position sensor
is composed of two identical sensing coils microfabricated
on a glass substrate. Microfabricated capacitors could also be
paired with the coils to form LC cells. The LVD micromirror
is then bonded onto the inductive position sensor such that
its Al-coated mirror plate is directly above the two sensing
coils. For the sensor operation in this study, one of the
coils serves as the transmitter coil, and the other serves as
the receiver coil (Fig. 2). The transmitter coil emits high
frequency magnetic flux that couples into the receiver
coil while inducing eddy currents within the Al mirror
plate. The induced eddy currents opposes the magnetic flux
from penetrating the mirror plate (electromagnetic shielding).
As the mirror plate approaches the coils due to its vertical
displacement z, the flux lines bend downwards, causing the
amount of inductive coupling between the coils to change.
Hence, the piston position of the mirror plate can be deduced
by measuring the amplitude of the inductive coupling signal
between the coils.
A. Lumped Element Modeling
The lumped element circuit model of the inductive position
sensor is shown in Fig. 3. The transmitter and receiver coils are
Fig. 3. Lumped element circuit model of the RIC based inductive position
sensor shown with the regenerative circuit and mirror plate.
paired with identical capacitors to form resonant inductive cou-
pled (RIC) LC cells [22] with the same resonant frequency f 0,
while a regenerative circuit was used to supply a feedback
input current Iin to start oscillation through the LC cells at the
frequency f 0 . f 0 can range from a few MHz to a few hundreds
of MHz. For demonstration purpose, f0 was designed to be
9.4 MHz in this work. The sensor output is taken at the
node Vsensor . The regenerative circuit (shown in Fig. 7(b))
will be discussed later. When the mirror plate moves up
and down, the coupling coefficient k between the coils is
affected, which in turn influences the amplitude of the output
signal Vsensor . Assuming an ideal regenerative circuit, the
sensitivity of Vsensor to displacement z can be derived as [23]
   
 d Vsensor   dk 2 
  =  Q L(2 f 0 )Iin  (1)
 dz   dz 
TSENG AND XIE: RESONANT INDUCTIVE COUPLING-BASED PISTON POSITION SENSING MECHANISM
Fig. 4. Simulated frequency response at Vsensor with different kQ coupling
conditions.
Fig. 5. Simulated current density distribution of the designed coils
at 9.4 MHz.
with Q as the quality factor of the LC cells, and L as the coil
inductance. Equation (1) is only valid when the two LC cells
are loosely coupled [16], which happens when kQ < 1.
This condition ensures that the frequency response at Vsensor
only exhibits one resonant peak at f 0 (as shown in Fig. 4).
If kQ exceeds 1, frequency splitting occurs even when the
two LC cells are perfectly matched (shown in Fig. 4 as well),
and the frequency response at Vsensor exhibits two resonant
peaks at
f0
f 0_lo = (2)
(1 + k)
f0
f 0_hi = . (3)
(1 k)
From (1), it can be seen that in order to maximize the
sensitivity, the coils must be designed to achieve an L and Q
as high as possible at the frequency f 0 within a limited
size. Increasing the resonant frequency f 0 can also help to
increase the sensitivity and scale down the coil size. Finally,
the sensitivity of k to z should also be maximized.
B. Coil Design Inductance and Q Factor
3D finite element simulations were carried out to design
the coils (shown in Fig. 5) to achieve a maximum inductance
209
TABLE I
S ENSING C OIL D IMENSIONS AND PARAMETERS
and Q factor, and the designed dimensions for the sensing
coils are shown in Table I. For this work, the side length of
the coils was limited to within 2 mm since the mirror plate of
the targeted LVD micromirror device is 3 mm3 mm, and the
coils were chosen as square shaped spiral coils. Since the coils
were fabricated by electroplating Cu through thick photoresist
molds, the thickness of the coils was limited to 35 m, which
limits the minimum coil resistance and thus the achievable
Q factor of the coils. By taking into account photolithography
limitations and the skin depth of Cu at 9.4 MHz, a designed
coil inductance of 330 nH was achieved with a Q factor of
around 14 at 9.4 MHz. As shown in Fig. 5, the current density
of the coils at 9.4 MHz is still evenly distributed, thus negating
the need to incorporate varying winding width designs. The
current Iin is limited to 3 mA by the regenerative circuit,
hence the power dissipation in the coils is below 3 mW. The
induced eddy current power loss in the mirror plate is also
below 0.33 mW, and can neglected.
C. Modeling for Coupling Coefficient
The change in coupling coefficient k versus the change
in vertical displacement z can be analytically understood
by employing electromagnetic image theory. First, as shown
in Fig. 6(a), the transmitter and receiver coils are both
simplified as single turn circular current loops with radius
of b located at the bottom of the 2D plane. The transmitter
coil has a current I1 running through it and emits a high
frequency upward magnetic flux on the lower half of the plot

(within distance d). The magnetic flux density vector field B 1
generated by the transmitter coil on a random point (x,z) can
be described by [24]
 
 30 I1 b2 xz  z2 1 
B1 = x + ( ) z (4)
4(x 2 + z 2 )3/2 x 2 + z 2 x 2 + z2 3
 
with x and z as the unit vectors.
If the mirror plate is assumed to be an infinite plane of a
perfect electric conductor, another identical image coil at a
distance 2d from the transmitter coil on the other side of the
mirror plate can be imagined to exist to take the place of the
mirror plate and the induced eddy currents. The image coil
carries a current I1 flowing in the opposite direction of I1 ,
210 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 25, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2016
Fig. 6. Modeling results for coupling coefficient k versus distance d:
(a) image theory analytical modeling, (b) finite element simulations, (c) k
versus d results.
and generates a downward opposing magnetic flux to cancel
the magnetic field at the mirror plate location (at distance d).

The magnetic flux density vector B 1 generated by the image
coil on the same point (x, z) is the same as (4) except that
z is replaced by (z-2d). Thus, the total magnetic flux density
at any point below distance d from the transmitter coil is the
 
vector sum of B 1 and B 1 . The total magnetic flux crossing
the receiver coil can then be calculated, and the results are
shown to correspond well with finite element simulations
(Fig. 6(b)) that use the coil dimensions of Table I with a
3 mm 3 mm mirror plate. The resulting coupling coefficient
k versus distance d of both the simulations and simplified
analytical calculations are plotted in Fig. 6(c). As shown,
the sensor exhibits two sensing regions [8], one as the front
slope region (from d = 2100 m to 1100 m, 1 mm sensing
range), and one as the back slope region (from d = 770 m
to 650 m, 120 m sensing range), and the neutral point
always happens when d is equal to half of the coil side
length. The reason for the decrease in coupling coefficient
at closer distances is due to the increasing percentage of the
total magnetic flux being reflected back into the transmitter
coil and not crossing into the receiver coil.
When d decreases to below 650 m, the coupling coefficient
continues to decrease. However, for the current measurement
setup, the regenerative circuit can no longer sustain the
oscillation signal Vsensor when d < 650 m.
Together with the designed coil inductance and Q factor,
and assuming Iin = 3 mA from the regenerative circuit, the
calculated sensitivities in both regions (neglecting skin effect)
from (1) were 27.9 V/m in the front slope region and
375 V/m in the back slope region. This means that the
back slope region has a sensing range that is about ten times
smaller than the front slope region, but also has a sensitivity
that is at least ten times higher. The choice of which region to
use is then determined by the specific LVD micromirror, the
intended piston scan range, as well as the micromirror/sensor
assembly.
In realistic cases, the skin depth of the Al layer on the
mirror plate should be considered, which means that if the
frequency f 0 is not high enough, a certain amount of magnetic
flux will leak through the mirror plate and thus reduce the
sensitivity.
D. Piston Sensing Resolution
Referring to Fig. 3, by considering the thermal noise
contributions from the resistive components R of both coils,
and assuming a noise figure of 4 dB for the regenerative
circuit (due to the 2N2222A based circuitry), the total root
mean square noise voltage at Vsensor is calculated to be around
2.47 V by integrating over the surrounding bandwidth from
1 MHz to 20 MHz. With the calculated piston sensitivities in
both regions mentioned above, the theoretical piston sensing
resolution is 88 nm in the front slope region, and 6.6 nm in the
back slope region. The theoretical piston sensing resolution in
the back slope region satisfies the 50 nm resolution specifica-
tion for infrared FTS applications, while the theoretical piston
sensing resolution in the front slope region can be further
improved by increasing the resonant frequency f 0 . Together
with the piston sensing ranges of both regions mentioned
above, the theoretical piston sensing dynamic range can be
calculated to be 81 dB in the front slope region, and 85 dB in
the back slope region.
E. Eddy Current Power Loss
As the mirror plate approaches the coils to a closer dis-
tance, the eddy current power loss within the mirror plate
becomes significant enough to reduce the Q factor of the coils.
Calculations and simulations show that the Q factor reduces
to 13.4 when the distance d drops to 800 m, and further
reduces to 10.8 when d drops to 400 m. Consequently, the
TSENG AND XIE: RESONANT INDUCTIVE COUPLING-BASED PISTON POSITION SENSING MECHANISM
Fig. 7. (a) Schematic of the regenerative circuit, (b) design of the regenerative
circuit, (c) schematic of the readout circuit, (d) design of the readout circuit.
operation of this sensor is also limited to when the mirror
plate distance d is within 500 m < d < 3000 m, or in
other words when d is within 0.25 to 1.5 times of the coil
side length. Approaching even closer will also cause the coil
inductance to decrease.
F. Interface and Readout Circuitry
The schematic and detailed design of the regenerative circuit
is shown in Fig. 7(a) and Fig. 7(b). The regenerative circuit
is used to provide positive feedback from the receiver LC cell
to the transmitter LC cell to start oscillation at f 0 . Discrete
transistors were used for demonstration purpose. The first stage
is a high input impedance buffer stage, which is needed to
avoid loading down the Q factor of the receiver LC cell. The
second stage is a tunable gain and tunable phase stage. Tunable
gain is achieved by adjusting the 1 k potentiometer Rpot ,
and tunable phase is achieved by adjusting the 40 pF tunable
capacitor Ctune . The third stage is a resonant amplifier stage
211
Fig. 8. Fabrication process: (a) patterning of the bottom Cu/Ti electrodes,
(b) second Ti lift-off to cover bottom electrodes, (c) SiO2 dielectric deposition
and patterning, (d) Cu/Ti seedlayer deposition and thick photoresist mold
formation, (e) Cu electroplating for windings, (f) seedlayer removal and
SiN passivation.
with the transmitter LC cell as its load. The third stage supplies
the input current Iin .
Furthermore, a readout circuit was constructed to convert
the amplitude of the sensor output signal Vsensor into the
voltage level of Vreadout (the schematic and details are shown
in Fig. 7(c) and Fig. 7(d)). Since the amplitude of Vsensor is
directly related to the piston position of the mirror plate, the
output voltage level of Vreadout also directly corresponds to
the mirror plate piston position, regardless of the mirror plate
motion frequency. The first stage of the readout circuit is a
JFET RF amplifier, and the second stage is a bias level shifter
connected to a diode peak detector for AC to DC conversion.
III. S ENSOR FABRICATION
The fabrication process of the sensing coils and capacitors
on the glass substrate starts with the sputter deposition and
patterning of a 1 m thick Cu layer (on 30 nm thick Ti layer)
as the capacitor bottom electrodes and interconnections
(Fig. 8(a)). A second 30 nm thick Ti layer is then sputter
deposited onto the bottom Cu electrodes by lift-off (Fig. 8(b)).
212
Fig. 9. Microfabricated sensing coils and capacitors: (a) the twin coils and
capacitors, (b) close-up view of the Cu coil windings.
Sulfuric acid based wet etching was used to pattern the bottom
Cu electrodes to form a sidewall slope, such that the second
Ti layer would completely cover the bottom Cu electrodes to
enhance adhesion and avoid Cu oxidation or diffusion during
the subsequent SiO2 deposition. Next, 0.3 m thick SiO2
is deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition
(PECVD) and patterned by dry etching as the capacitor
dielectric layer (Fig. 8(c)). Another Cu/Ti layer is then sputter
deposited as the seedlayer for Cu electroplating, followed by
the formation of a 35 m thick photoresist mold by dou-
ble spin coating and photolithography patterning of AZ9260
(Fig. 8(d)). The Cu windings and capacitor top electrodes are
then formed by electroplating (Fig. 8(e)). After phototresist
and seedlayer removal, a final PECVD SiN passivation layer
is used to protect all Cu structures from oxidation (Fig. 8(f)).
The microfabricated device with the twin sensing coils and
capacitors is shown in Fig. 9, with the capacitors surrounding
the coils. Another version with only twin microfabricated
coils was also produced, which is to be paired with discrete
capacitors for comparison. The coil dimensions were close
to the designed values of Table I. The inductance of the
coils was around 330 nH, but the Q factor at 9.4 MHz
was lower at around 10.5 due to the lower than expected
conductivity of the electroplated Cu (1.5 times lower than the
theoretical conductivity of copper) and the slightly reduced
winding thickness during the seedlayer removal etching. The
microfabricated capacitors had a capacitance of around 800 pF,
causing the resonant frequency f 0 to be around 9.4 MHz when
combined with the regenerative circuit.
IV. TARGETED LVD M ICROMIRROR
The targeted electrothermal LVD micromirror device was
shown in Fig. 1(b), and a close-up view of the electrothermal
JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 25, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2016
Fig. 10. A close-up view of the electrothermal bimorph actuators of the
targeted electrothermal LVD micromirror device.
Fig. 11. The measured static elevation of the mirror plate versus driving
voltage of the targeted electrothermal LVD micromirror with curve fitting.
actuators is shown in Fig. 10. As mentioned, the mirror plate
is 3 mm 3 mm in area with 1 m thick Al coating on
20 m thick silicon. As shown, the mirror plate is initially
elevated 550 m above the substrate by numerous Z-shaped
LVD electrothermal actuators, each composed of three sets
of Al on SiO2 bimorphs (with embedded Pt heater resistors)
and two silicon rigid frames. When the heater resistors heat
up due to current flow, the actuators flatten downwards due to
the mismatch of the coefficients of thermal expansion between
Al and SiO2 , causing the mirror plate to exhibit a downward
piston scan. The lengths of the bimorphs are designed such that
most of the center shift and tilt angle of the mirror plate is
cancelled during its piston scan. Details of the actuator design
are presented in [9]. The advantage of this type of actuator
design is the relatively large piston scan range that can be
achieved (hundreds of microns) with relatively low driving
voltage and power (typically several volts and hundreds of
milliwatts). For this device, the static elevation of the mirror
plate versus driving voltage is plotted in Fig. 11. Only 5 V
is needed to achieve a piston scan range up to 430 m.
However, the linear displacement range is when the driving
voltage is between 1.2 V to 3.8 V. The curve fitting in Fig. 11
is conducted by using the equation
D0 Df
D= + Df (5)
1 + exp((V Vmid )S)
TSENG AND XIE: RESONANT INDUCTIVE COUPLING-BASED PISTON POSITION SENSING MECHANISM
Fig. 12. Measurement setup: (a) the sensing coils fixed on top of the mirror
plate, (b) entire setup fixed under a microscope to monitor the distance d.
with D as the mirror plate elevation, D0 and Df as the
initial and final elevation (550 m and 118 m in this case),
Vmid = 2.75 V as the middle voltage of the curve, and
S = 1.217 as a parameter related to the center slope.
The frequency response of this device was first measured
by using a laser Doppler vibrometer, and the results will be
then compared with the measurements obtained by using the
inductive position sensor. The thermal cutoff frequency for this
device is around 10 Hz, and the resonant frequencies of the
piston and tilt modes are 390 Hz and 470 Hz respectively. Due
to the slower thermal response of this device, it was operated
at below 1 Hz when conducting time response measurements
with the inductive position sensor.
V. M EASUREMENT R ESULTS
Although the ideal assembly of the sensing coils with the
LVD micromirror device should be as Fig. 1, due to the
demonstration purpose nature of this work, the sensing coils
were first combined with the board level circuitry, then fixed
on top of the mirror plate with a micropositioner such that the
sensing coils face downwards towards the mirror plate, and
the initial distance between the mirror plate and the coils was
monitored with a microscope looking through the transparent
glass substrate. The measurement setup is shown in Fig. 12,
with the sensing coils combined with the circuitry. The
LVD micromirror device was driven by a voltage Vdrive pro-
vided from a function generator to achieve the piston scan.
213
Fig. 13. Static measurements results: (a) amplitude of Vsensor versus
distance d, (b) Vreadout versus distance d in the back slope region with linear
fitting.
A. Static Measurements
The static measurements of the amplitude of Vsensor versus
the distance d between the mirror plate and sensing coils are
plotted in Fig. 13(a) for different designs. The sensitivity of
the inductive position sensor constructed with twin microfab-
ricated LC cells is slightly lower due to the lower Q factor
of the microfabricated capacitors compared to discrete
capacitors. For the inductive position sensor constructed with
twin microfabricated sensing coils only, the front slope region
has a 1 mm sensing range (from d = 1500 to 2500 m),
an average sensitivity of 13 V/m (10%), and a 280 nm
resolution. The back slope region has a 130 m sensing
range (from d = 750 to 880 m), an average sensitivity
of 185 V/m (4%), and a 20 nm resolution. The resolution
was measured by using a spectrum analyzer to determine the
noise floor at Vsensor , which was near 3.68 V. The sensitivities
in both regions were roughly 2 times lower than theoretical
predictions due to the 1 m thick Al layer on the mirror plate
being thinner than its skin depth of 27 m at 9.4 MHz, and
also the lower than expected Q factor of the microfabricated
sensing coils being at around 11. Nevertheless, the inductive
position sensor is still shown to provide adequate sensitivities
in both regions. As expected, the resolution in the back slope
region satisfies the 50 nm resolution specification for infrared
FTS applications, while the resolution in the front slope region
can be improved by increasing the Q factor of the sensing coils
and the resonant frequency f 0 . The measured sensor dynamic
range can be calculated to be 71 dB in the front slope region,
and 76 dB in the back slope region.
214 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 25, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2016

Next, to ensure a better piston scan repeatability of

the electrothermal LVD micromirror device, the driving
voltage Vdrive was limited to below 2.75 V, which limits the
piston scan range to within 200 m. Hence, the focus will
be on using the back slope region to monitor the mirror
plate motion. With the previously mentioned readout circuit
used to convert the amplitude of Vsensor into the voltage level
of Vreadout , the measured results for Vreadout versus distance d
are plotted in Fig. 13(b) for the back slope region. When
compared to the linear fit, the inductive position sensor in
the back slope region exhibits a linearity of 4% FS within the
range of d = 750 to 908 m.

B. Time Response Measurements

With the mirror plate initially fixed at a distance
d = 820 m from the coils, and the electrothermal
LVD micromirror driven by a 0 V to 2.2 V, 0.3 Hz square
wave Vdrive signal (Fig. 14(a)), the time response measure-
ments of Vsensor and Vreadout are shown in Fig. 14(b) and (c).
This square wave driving signal causes the mirror plate dis-
tance d to travel from 820 m to 972 m, which can be seen
from the initial and final values of Vreadout when compared to
Fig. 13(b). As, shown, the rise and fall time response of the
mirror plate piston scan can be seen in the amplitude envelope
of Vsensor (with the irregularities caused by the sampling
rate of the oscilloscope), while Vreadout follows the envelope
of Vsensor , effectively demodulating Vsensor to a signal that
corresponds to the piston position. The 10% to 90% rise time
and fall time of the piston scan is around 110 ms and 300 ms
respectively. The slower than expected response time is mainly
due to the low actuator resistance (13  in this case) and
the insufficient driving capability of the function generator.
A higher actuator resistance design should eliminate this issue.
Next, with the mirror plate initially fixed at a distance
d = 835 m from the coils, and the electrothermal
LVD micromirror driven by a 0 V to 1.8 V, 0.3 Hz ramp wave
Vdrive signal (Fig. 15(a)), the time response measurements
of Vsensor and Vreadout are shown in Fig. 15(b) and (c). Once Fig. 14. Time response measurements results: (a) square wave driving signal
Vdrive , (b) Vsensor time response with square wave envelope, (c) Vreadout time
again, the ramp up and ramp down time response of the response with rise time and fall time.
mirror plate can be observed in the envelope of Vsensor , with
Vreadout following the envelope of Vsensor . This ramp wave
driving signal causes the mirror plate distance d to travel from LVD micromirror driving signal Vdrive adjusted to a
835 m to 935 m. However, the LVD micromirror transitions 1.3 V to 2 V, 0.3 Hz ramp wave signal, the measured time
between the nonlinear displacement region (when Vdrive is response of Vreadout compared to the calculated theoretical
near 0 V) and the linear displacement region, causing the time time response of Vreadout are shown in Fig. 16. This ramp
response of Vsensor and Vreadout to become rounded when Vdrive rave driving signal causes the mirror plate distance d to travel
is near 0 V. By relating Vdrive with the mirror plate distance d from 840 m to 905 m, with the LVD micromirror operating
through (5), and assuming a linear sensitivity relation between within the linear displacement region, thus having a more
Vreadout and distance d from Fig. 13(b), the calculated theo- triangular shaped time response.
retical Vreadout time response is also and plotted against the
measured Vreadout time response in Fig. 15(c). Overall, the
trend of the measured Vreadout time response matches well C. Frequency Response Measurements
with the calculated theoretical Vreadout time response, with By further adjusting the driving signal Vdrive to
the slight difference in between mainly caused by sensitivity a 1.3 V to 2 V, 0.3 Hz sine wave signal, while documenting
nonlinearities as well as the slower LVD micromirror response the amplitude of the output Vreadout signal, the piston
time. displacement frequency response of the electrothermal
Finally, with the mirror plate initially fixed at a dis- LVD micromirror could be obtained by recording the signal
tance d = 800 m from the coils, and the electrothermal gain from Vdrive to Vreadout , which is plotted in Fig. 17
TSENG AND XIE: RESONANT INDUCTIVE COUPLING-BASED PISTON POSITION SENSING MECHANISM
Fig. 15. Time response measurements results: (a) ramp wave driving signal
Vdrive , (b) Vsensor time response with ramp wave envelope, (c) Vreadout time
response with theoretical calculations.
Fig. 16. Time response measurement results with the LVD micromirror
driven by a ramp wave Vdrive signal within its linear displacement region.
with different scales. The frequency response measurements
obtained via the inductive position sensor corresponds well
with the frequency response measurements obtained via the
215
Fig. 17. Frequency response measurements with the inductive position
sensor: (a) measurements plotted in log-log scale showing thermal cut-
off frequency compared to results from the laser Doppler vibrometer,
(b) measurements plotted in linear-linear scale showing resonant frequencies.
laser Doppler vibrometer (inset of Fig. 17(a)), showing that
the inductive position sensor can provide sufficient sensing
bandwidth to cover the motion of the LVD micromirror
device. The thermal cutoff frequency is shown to be at
around 10 Hz, and the resonant frequencies of the piston and
tilt modes are also shown to be near 390 Hz and 470 Hz
respectively.
VI. C ONCLUSION
The fundamental analytical modeling, sensor and circuit
design, fabrication, and measurements of an inductive
eddy current based position sensor for piston scanning
LVD micromirrors is reported in this paper. By sensing the
change in the resonant inductive coupling between two sensing
coils due to the piston displacement of a 3 mm 3 mm
Al mirror plate, two sensing regions were achieved, one with
a larger sensing range of 1 mm and a 280 nm resolution,
the other with a smaller sensing range of 130 m and
a 20 nm resolution. Together with a readout circuit, the
inductive position sensor is shown be very suitable for static,
time response, and frequency response measurements. This
inductive position sensor can also be used to monitor other
large displacement micromirrors [2][4] or MEMS devices,
such as vertical lens scanners [9], tunable capacitors [25],
micropumps, micromotors, and other microscale platforms.
Future effort will be on increasing the sensor oscillation
frequency, which can help to increase the Q factor of the
coils, scale down the coil size, and reduce the skin depth of the
Al mirror plate, which overall improves on the sensitivity and
216 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 25, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2016
resolution of the sensor. A low noise RF circuit design may
also be employed to help lower the noise floor to achieve better
resolution. More advanced microfabrication technologies that
were previously demonstrated may also be employed to aid
the miniaturization of the sensing coils and capacitors, such
as through silicon Cu electroplating to form higher aspect ratio
coil windings [26] to achieve a higher Q factor, and a polishing
and selective metal etching based process to form high density
capacitors [27], [28]. With the same coil architecture, another
sensor design that can simultaneously sense the mirror plate
piston position and tilt angle is being constructed, which is
achieved by additionally sensing the change in coil inductance.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The device fabrication and characterization was done in
the Nanoscale Research Facility of the University of Florida.
Measurements were conducted with the usage of the
equipment in the joint laboratories of the Interdisciplinary
Microsystems Group of the University of Florida.
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Victor Farm-Guoo Tseng (M13) received the
B.S. and M.S. degrees from National Chiao Tung
University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, in 2005 and 2007,
respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Univer-
sity of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA, in 2015, all
in electrical and computer engineering.
He was with Texas Instruments from 2009 to 2010,
where he was a Product Engineer for the digital
light processing picoprojector products at the assem-
bly and test site in Taiwan. He has authored over
14 journal and conference papers, and his research
experience and interest covers the fields of MEMS sensors and actuators,
inductive position sensing, vibration energy harvesting devices, integrated
high-density passives, and optical MEMS devices.
Dr. Tseng has been a Member of the IEEE Electron Devices Society
since 2013.
Huikai Xie (M02SM07) received the M.S. degree
in electrical and computer engineering from Tufts
University, Medford, MA, USA, in 1998, and the
Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineer-
ing from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh,
PA, USA, in 2002.
He joined the University of Florida in 2002, where
he is currently a Professor with the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has
authored over 200 technical papers and holds more
than 30 patents. His research interests include
MEMS/NEMS transducers, integrated sensors, microactuators, integrated
power passives, carbon nanotube-CMOS integration, optical MEMS, infrared
sensors, and biomedical imaging.
Dr. Xie is a Senior Member of the Optical Society.