A Novel Architecture for Differential Resonant Sensing

Jérome Juillard (1) , Alain Bonnoit (1) , Nuria Barniol (2) , Arantxa Uranga (2) , Gabriel Vidal-Alvarez (2)

1 E3S - Supélec Sciences des Systèmes
2 UAB - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

The basic principles of a novel differential resonant sensing architecture are explained, illustrated and experimentally validated. We describe how a digital mixer architecture may be built in order to enforce a mutually injection-locked oscillation state in two M/NEMS resonators. It is shown that, in this state, the phase difference between the two resonators is highly sensitive to mismatch and can be used to sense changes of physical quantities, whereas it is largely unaffected by drift (e.g. induced by unwanted changes in environmental conditions). Some results obtained with a PCB-mounted discrete-component mixer and two NEMS resonators co-integrated with an analog front-end validate this approach.

Keywords: resonant sensors; differential sensors

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]; Electronics; Engineering Sciences [physics]; Micro and nanotechnologies/Microelectronics

Jérome Juillard, Alain Bonnoit, Nuria Barniol, Arantxa Uranga, Gabriel Vidal-Alvarez. A Novel Architecture for Differential Resonant Sensing. Eurosensors 2014, Sep 2014, Brescia, Italy. pp.1573 - 1576, ⟨10.1016/j.proeng.2014.11.601⟩. ⟨hal-01103768⟩