Selective actuation of higher-order modes of an electromagnetically driven micro drum

In this paper, we experimentally investigate selective actuation of the first few higher-order modes of a micromachined silicon nitride circular membrane (micro drum), which is actuated by electromagnetic forces. A novel design of electrodes is proposed to enable selective actuation for portions of the membrane with the Lorentz force, which excites efficiently the higher-order modes. With different electrode configurations, we show that the (0, 1) mode, the degenerate (1, 1) modes, and the (2, 1) mode can be selectively activated or deactivated using the orthogonality between the actuation force and the mode shapes. A reduced-order model for the circular membrane is established and used to explain the results.