Air damping effect on the air-based CMUT operation

The vibration amplitude, damping ratio and viscous damping force in capacitive micromachinedultrasonic transducers (CMUTs) with a perforated membrane have been calculated theoretically and compared with the experimental data on its vibration behavior. The electrical bias of the DC and the AC voltages and the operation frequency conditions influence the damping effect because leads to variations in the gap height and the vibration velocity of the membrane. We propose a new estimation method to determine the damping ratio by the decay rate of the vibration amplitudes of the perforated membrane plate are measured using a laser vibrometer at each frequency, and the damping ratios were calculated from those results. The influences of the vibration frequency and the electrostatic force on the damping effect under the various operation conditions have been studied.