Design & Simulation of In-plane MEMS Lorentz Force Magnetometer

This report presents the design and simulation of a MEMS based In-plane Lorentz Force Magnetometer (I-LFM), simulated for 8 um UV-LIGA technology using FEM tool of COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b. Designed I-LFM was simulated in the magnetic field range varied from 1 mu T to 100 mu T. The proposed structure composed of a comb drive actuator, configured such that the fingers overlap with each other to generate capacitive coupling for its actuation. The magnetic field can be detected in Z-axis by this comb drive structure. The device was excited by supplying the sinusoidal current with the frequency equivalent to resonance frequency of the device at its first mode i.e. 12.047 kHz. In order to achieve the maximum mechanical output, the device was operated at the resonant frequency. Simulations based results shows a good linearity in the magnetic field range of 1 mu T to 100 mu T with a high quality factor of 130.