Microleverage DETF Aluminum Nitride resonating accelerometer

In this work, we present a novel microleverage Double Ended Tuning Fork (DETF) resonant accelerometer made of thin film piezoelectric Aluminum Nitride (AlN). The development and characterization of this novel design is discussed through a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and experimentally demonstrated. The entire accelerometer structure is made of 2 μm of highly c-axis oriented piezoelectric AlN with 100 nm platinum as top and bottom electrode. The preliminary characterization of the accelerometer was performed in a vacuum chamber at a pressure of 4 Torr and achieved a sensitivity of 18.1 Hz/g (i.e. 54 ppm/g) along the sensing axis and 0.1 Hz/g along the cross axis.