Reducing parasitic effects of actuation and sensing schemes for 1 piezoelectric microelectromechanical resonators

9 The co-integration of piezoelectric actuation and sensing capabilities on 10 microelectromechanical system-based resonators can be a source of electrical cross-talk that, if not 11 properly taken into account, may dramatically affect the interpretation of the device’s output. In this 12 paper, we identify three parasitic electrical effects pertaining to the most commonly used piezoelectric 13 actuation and sensing schemes. To further investigate the impact of such parasitic effects, 14 microcantilevers, bridges and membranes integrating a layer of sol-gel lead zirconate titanate (PZT) 15 were fabricated and electrically characterized. Experimental results on the resonant characteristics 16 were compared with simulations of the studied resonators’ equivalent electrical models. Methods for 17 reducing the design-dependent parasitic electrical effects such as mutual capacitances of less than 18 10fF, electrical wiring or static capacitance mismatches of less than 20% of the integrated 19 piezoelectric films are discussed. 20