Analysis of intrinsic damping in vibrating piezoelectric microcantilevers

The intrinsic damping of a piezoelectric microcantilever is studied under high vacuum conditions, where the influence of fluid damping on the quality factor is negligible. This paper investigates three major intrinsic damping effects, which are anchor loss, thermoelastic damping (TED) and coating loss. Since the different damping mechanisms generally appear mixed with each other, it is difficult to separate them experimentally. Anchor loss and TED are investigated by using a combination of both analytical and numerical methods, while the coating loss mechanism is explored by measuring a series of cantilevers being coated by a piezo-electrode stack with 20–100 % coverage of the beam length. Finally, experimental validations are conducted on different structures of piezoelectric microcantilevers, showing a good qualitative match with the analytical findings.