A self-temperature-compensated micromechanical bridge resonator

A self-temperature-compensated micromechanical bridge resonator is designed and fabricated. The resonator comprises an electrothermal excitation/piezoresistive detection Si/SiO₂ bridge resonator and a cantilever thermometer. Both bridge and cantilever have approximately equal thickness and fabricate simultaneously with same materials by identical process. The temperature drift of bridge resonator’ resonance frequency is compensated by changing voltage applied on the Wheatstone bridge to an appropriated value determined by the output voltage of cantilever thermometer. The temperature drift of resonance frequency drops down two orders of magnitude compared with that of uncompensated resonator.