Development of 3D Fused Quartz Hemi-Toroidal Shells for High-Q Resonators and Gyroscopes

In this paper, recent developments in the design and fabrication of micromachined fused quartz hemi-toroidal shells are presented. The fabrication is based on micro glassblowing process, demonstrated to enable the realization of high-Q MEMS resonators and gyroscopes. The design optimization of the shell geometry is performed using parametric finite element analysis. The effect of geometric parameters on the scaling of the resonant frequencies and energy dissipation are discussed. Three variations of the micro-glassblowing process are studied in the paper, concluding that shell resonators with a broad operational frequency range without losing the symmetry and Q-factor are feasible. Finite element models are presented to simulate the presented glassblowing processes, which are used to predict the final geometry of shell resonators accurately. Operational frequency as low as 5 kHz and Q-factor as high as 1.7 million is demonstrated on the fabricated shell resonators. The proposed process modifications demonstrate a low-cost and scalable fabrication of 3D shells for resonators and gyroscopes, which can be used in inertial navigation and timing applications.