Effect of Metallization on Quality Factor and Noise Characteristics in Fused Silica Dual-Shell Gyroscopes

Metal coating of Fused Silica (FS) Micro-machined Hemispherical Resonator Gyroscopes (micro-HRGs) is necessary to allow for capacitive actuation and detection of motion. Metallization provides electrical conductivity, but reduces the quality factor of resonators. Both effects contribute to sensitivity and noise characteristics of the sensor. In this paper, we considered the metal coating material and thickness, linking the design and fabrication parameters to the gyroscope’s noise performance. We designed and fabricated FS Dual-Shell Gyroscopes (DSGs), a version of micro-HRG, and used it as a test vehicle to study the trade-offs between metallization, quality factor, conductivity, and noise characteristics. We developed an analytical electromechanical model to optimize metal-coating and predict gyroscope performance. The results have been confirmed experimentally. [2022-0052]