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A novel quartz micromachined gyroscope is proposed in this paper. The novel gyroscope is realized by quartz anisotropic wet etching and 3-dimensional electrodes deposition. In the quartz wet etching process, the quality of Cr/Au mask films affecting the process are studied by experiment. An excellent mask film with 100 Å Cr and 2000 Å Au is achieved by optimization of experimental parameters. Crystal facets after etching seriously affect the following sidewall electrodes deposition process and the structure’s mechanical behaviours. Removal of crystal facets is successfully implemented by increasing etching time based on etching rate ratios between facets and crystal planes. In the electrodes deposition process, an aperture mask evaporation method is employed to prepare electrodes on 3-dimensional surfaces of the gyroscope structure. The alignments among the aperture masks are realized by the ABM™ Mask Aligner System. Based on the processes described above, a z–axis quartz gyroscope is fabricated successfully.

Structure optimization and simulation analysis of the quartz micromachined gyroscope are reported in this paper. The relationships between the structure parameters and the frequencies of work mode were analysed by finite element analysis. The structure parameters of the quartz micromachined gyroscope were optimized to reduce the difference between the frequencies of the drive mode and the sense mode. The simulation results were proved by testing the prototype gyroscope, which was fabricated by micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Therefore, the frequencies of the drive mode and the sense mode can match each other by the structure optimization and simulation analysis of the quartz micromachined gyroscope, which is helpful in the design of the high sensitivity quartz micromachined gyroscope.