High- Q, in-plane modes of nanomechanical resonators operated in air

Philip S. Waggoner, Christine P. Tan, Leon Bellan, Harold G. Craighead

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    23 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    Nanomechanical resonators have traditionally been limited to use in vacuum due to low quality factors that come as a result of viscous damping effects in air or liquid. We have fabricated arrays of 90 nm thick trampoline-shaped resonators, studied their resonant frequency spectrum as a function of pressure, and found that some high frequency modes exhibit quality factors over 2000 at atmospheric pressure. We have excited the in-plane resonances of these devices, verified their identities both experimentally and with finite element modeling, and demonstrated their advantageous characteristics for ambient sensing. Even after deposition of a relatively thick polymer layer, the in-plane resonant modes still boast quality factors on the order of 2000. These results show promise for the use of nanomechanical resonant sensors in real-time atmospheric sensing applications.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Article number094315
    JournalJournal of Applied Physics
    Volume105
    Issue number9
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 2009

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Physics and Astronomy

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