The existing researches on quartz gyroscope mainly focus on the structure design of the tuning fork, which aim at obtaining a better vibration characterization. However, the fabrication of complicated structure is a challenge for present processes, and the imperfect fabrication process seriously affects the performances of the sensors. In this paper, a novel quartz cross-fork structure micromachined gyroscope is proposed. The sensor has a simple structure in x-y plane of quartz crystal. Unlike other quartz gyroscopes, the proposed gyroscope is based on shear stress detection to sense Coriolis' force rather than normal stress detection. This feature can simplify the sensing electrode patterns and miniaturize the structure easily. Then the mechanical analysis of the structure is discussed. In order to obtain high sensitivities and uniform characteristics between different structures, the sensing beam is designed to be tapered, and the taper should be appreciably greater than 1°. This scheme is validated by finite element analysis software. The dynamic characteristic of the structure is analyzed by lumped parameter model. The dynamic stress in the beam and the detection sensitivity are deduced to optimize the structure parameter of gyroscope. Finally, the gyroscope is fabricated by quartz anisotropic wet etching. The prototype is characterized as follows. The drive mode frequency is 13.38 kHz, and the quality factor is about 900 in air. The scale factor is 1.45 mV/((°) s -1 ) and the nonlinearity is 3.6% in the dynamic range of ±200°/s. Process and test results show that the proposed quartz gyroscope can achieve a high performance at atmosphere pressure. The research can simplify the fabrication of the quartz gyroscope, and is taken as a novel method for the design of quartz gyroscope.
