Quality Factor Trimming Method Using Thermoelastic Dissipation for Ring-Shape MEMS Resonator

We report a new method to control the quality factor (Q-factor) mismatch in a MEMS disk resonator using the effect of thermoelastic dissipation (TED). The heat conduction path was trimmed to control the thermal time constant, eventually Q-factor determined by TED. The heat conduction beams with small mechanical stiffness were placed in between large temperature difference areas. The Q-factors of two orthogonal modes could be independently controlled with little effect on the resonance frequency. By the proposed method, Q-factor could be trimmed as high as 38%, while the frequency change was only 0.5%.