Elsevier

Procedia Engineering

Volume 87, 2014, Pages 452-455
Procedia Engineering

Micromachined Electric Field Mill Employing a Vertical Moving Shutter

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2014.11.352Get rights and content
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Abstract

This paper presents a new type of micromachined electric field mill (MEFM) for measuring dc electric fields. This MEFM employs thermal actuators for vertical movement of an electrically grounded shutter, to mill the amplitude of a dc electric field incident on underlying sense electrodes. It addresses the main drawbacks of existing MEFMs, which are shutter displacement in large electric field, and drive signal interference from the shutter actuator. Simulation results show that for a 1 kV/m dc field the output of the sensor is about 1pA.

Keywords

Electric field measurement
electric fields
micromachining
electric field mill
thermal actuator
MEFM
MEMS

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Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of Eurosensors 2014.