A Novel High-Sensitivity Resonant Electric Field Microsensor with Nonlinear Enhanced Sensitivity

This paper presents a novel high-sensitivity electric field microsensor (EFM) with nonlinear enhanced sensitivity. nonlinear driving electrodes are designed to exploit the stiffness softening effect induced by electrostatic nonlinearity. The electrostatic nonlinearity is made dominant by optimizing the nonlinear comb driving electrode. The stiffness softening effect of the electrostatic nonlinearity is utilized to give the microsensor a higher amplitude, thereby enhancing the sensitivity. Tested in vacuum conditions, the sensitivity of the microsensor is deduced to be 0.63 mV/(kV/m) with an accuracy of 1.30% and a repeatability of 0.41 %.