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Influence of mechanical coupling by SiO2 membrane on the frequency selectivity of microfabricated beam arrays for artificial basilar membranes

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Abstract

Two types of microfabricated acoustic transducers—the resonator array of isolated beams (RAIB) and the resonator array of coupled beams (RACB)—were built using MEMS technology. The frequency selectivity of the two types of transducers was qualitatively compared using the transfer functions measured with a scanning laser Doppler vibrometer (SLDV). Each RAIB beam operated as a band-pass filter in the proximity to the corresponding resonance frequency, thereby showing the frequency-selective feature of the basilar membrane (BM). However, the frequency selectivity of RACB was poor because the SiO2 membrane, which mechanically coupled the neighboring beams, suppressed the independent response of each beam. The influence of the mechanical coupling of the SiO2 membrane was simulated using lumped parametric models. Simulation results showed that the coupling stiffness of the SiO2 membrane may significantly undermine the frequency selectivity of the resonator array. The comparison of the frequency-selective performance revealed that RAIB is a better option than RACB for mimicking the tonotopy of BM.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Fusion Technology for Production, Hanbat National University, Daejeon, 305-719, Korea

    Won Joon Song

  2. Department of Robotics Engineering, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Daegu, 711-873, Korea

    Jongmoon Jang, Sangwon Kim & Hongsoo Choi

  3. DGIST-ETH Microrobot Research Center, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Daegu, 711-873, Korea

    Jongmoon Jang, Sangwon Kim & Hongsoo Choi

Authors
  1. Won Joon Song
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  2. Jongmoon Jang
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  3. Sangwon Kim
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  4. Hongsoo Choi
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Correspondence to Hongsoo Choi.

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Recommended by Associate Editor Cheolung Cheong

These authors equally contributed to the first authorship.

Won Joon Song is currently a research scholar at the Institute for Fusion Technology for Production in Hanbat National University, Daejeon, Korea. He received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Cincinnati, OH, USA in 2010. He worked at BOSCH, Cheongwon, Korea from 1997 to 2003 as an R&D engineer. He served as a researcher at the Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials, Daejeon, Korea from 2010 to 2011. His research interests include auditory system modeling, cochlear mechanics, signal processing for artificial cochlea, occupational hearing loss assessment, combustion instability detection, and image processing of combustion flame.

Jongmoon Jang received his B.S. degree in Kyungpook National University in 2010. He currently is a Ph.D. candidate at the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, Korea. His research interests include BioMEMS, artificial cochlea, auditory prosthesis, flexible electrode array, piezoelectric microphone, and so on.

Sangwon Kim received his M.S. degree in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of Kyungpook National University in 2011. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate of the Department of Robotics Engineering in the Daegu Gyeongbuk, Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, Korea. His research interests include MEMS, sensors and actuators, and microrobots.

Hongsoo Choi received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Yeungnam University in 2001 and his M.S. degree in 2003 and Ph.D. in 2007 from the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University (WSU). He served as a postdoctoral scholar at WSU and UC Davis before joining the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials as a Senior Researcher in 2009. He has been with the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, Korea since October 2010. His general research area is in BioMEMS, and his current research topics are micro/nano robot, artificial cochlea, piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers, and so on.

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Song, W.J., Jang, J., Kim, S. et al. Influence of mechanical coupling by SiO2 membrane on the frequency selectivity of microfabricated beam arrays for artificial basilar membranes. J Mech Sci Technol 29, 963–971 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-015-0210-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-015-0210-2

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