Detection of electromagnetic waves using charged MEMS structures

We describe micromechanical structures that are capable of sensing both electrostatic fields and electromagnetic fields over a wide frequency range. Typically, sensing of electromagnetic waves is achieved with electrically conducting antennas, which despite the many advantages do not exhibit high se...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics letters 2012-01, Vol.100 (10)
Main Authors: Datskos, Panos G, Lavrik, Nickolay V, Tobin, Jacob D, Bowland, Landon T
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antenna
ANTENNAS
charge
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
DETECTION
DIMENSIONS
ELECTRIC FIELDS
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELECTROSTATICS
EM wave
FREQUENCY RANGE
MEMS
OSCILLATORS
SENSITIVITY
SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO
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Description
Summary:We describe micromechanical structures that are capable of sensing both electrostatic fields and electromagnetic fields over a wide frequency range. Typically, sensing of electromagnetic waves is achieved with electrically conducting antennas, which despite the many advantages do not exhibit high sensitivity over a broad frequency range. An important aspect of our present work is that, in contrast to traditional antennas, the dimensions of micromechanical oscillators sensitive to electromagnetic waves can be much smaller than the wavelength. We characterized the micromechanical oscillators and measured responses to electric fields and estimated the performance limits by evaluating the signal-to-noise ratio theoretically and experimentally.
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/1.3689017