Much experimental effort is invested these days in fabricating nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) that are sufficiently small, cold, and clean, so as to approach quantum mechanical behavior as their typical quantum energy scale $\hbarΩ$ becomes comparable to that of the ambient thermal energy $k_{B}T$. Such systems will hopefully enable one to observe the quantum behavior of human-made objects, and test some of the basic principles of quantum mechanics. Here we expand and elaborate on our recent suggestion [PRL 99 (2007) 040404] to exploit the nonlinear nature of a nanoresonator in order to observe its transition into the quantum regime. We study this transition for an isolated resonator, as well as one that is coupled to a heat bath at either zero or finite temperature. We argue that by exploiting nonlinearities, quantum dynamics can be probed using technology that is almost within reach. Numerical solutions of the equations of motion display the first quantum corrections to classical dynamics that appear as the classical-to-quantum transition occurs. This provides practical signatures to look for in future experiments with NEMS resonators.
We propose a scheme able to entangle at the steady state a nanomechanical resonator with a microwave cavity mode of a driven superconducting coplanar waveguide. The nanomechanical resonator is capacitively coupled with the central conductor of the waveguide and stationary entanglement is achievable up to temperatures of tens of milliKelvin.
We present a scheme of generating large-amplitude Schrödinger cat states and entanglement in a coupled system of nanomechanical resonator and single Cooper pair box (SCPB), without being limited by the magnitude of the coupling. It is shown that the entanglement between the resonator and the SCPB can be detected by a spectroscopic method.
We consider a quantum model of a nanomechanical flexing beam resonator interacting with a bath comprising a few damped tunneling two level systems (TLS's). In contrast with a resonator interacting bilinearly with an ohmic free oscillator bath (modeling clamping loss, for example), the mechanical resonator damping is amplitude dependent, while the decoherence of quantum superpositions of mechanical position states depends only weakly on their spatial separation.
We propose a scheme for generating the Schrödinger cat state based on geometric operations by a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting charge qubit. The charge qubit, driven by two strong classical fields, interacts with a high-frequency phonon mode of the nanomechanical resonator. During the operation, the charge qubit undergoes no real transitions, while the phonon mode of the nanomechanical resonator is displaced along different paths in the phase space, dependent on the states of the charge qubit, which yields the Schrödinger cat state. The robustness of the scheme is justif…
We describe a cavity QED analogue for the coupling system of a spin and a nanomechanical resonator with a magnetic tip. For the quantized nanomechanical resonator, a spin-boson model for this coupling system can refer to a Jaynes-Cummings(JC) or an anti-JC model. These observations predict some quantum optical phenomena, such as squeezing and "collapse-revival" in the single oscillation mode of the nanomechanical resonator when it is initially prepared in the quasi-classical state. By modulating the phase of RF magnetic field one can switch the system between the JC and anti-JC model, which pr…
We present a ground state cooling scheme for a nanomechanical resonator linearly coupled with a LC oscillator. The linear coupling, when periodically modulated at red detuning, up-converts the low-frequency nanomechanical mode to the high-frequency LC oscillator mode and generates backaction force that can cool the resonator to its ground state in the resolved-sideband regime. We also study the effect of the quantum backaction noise on the cooling due to the counter rotating term in the linear coupling. The scheme can be compared with laser cooling for the atomic systems and can be realized in…
We show that it is possible to cool a nanomechanical resonator mode to its ground state. The proposed technique is based on resonant laser excitation of a phonon sideband of an embedded quantum dot. The strength of the sideband coupling is determined directly by the difference between the electron-phonon couplings of the initial and final states of the quantum dot optical transition. Possible applications of the technique we describe include generation of non-classical states of mechanical motion.
We show that it is possible to perform a continuous measurement that continually projects a nano-resonator into its energy eigenstates by employing a linear coupling with a two-state system. This technique makes it possible to perform a measurement that exposes the quantum nature of the resonator by coupling it to a Cooper-pair Box and a superconducting transmission-line resonator.
Spin-mechanics studies interactions between spin systems and mechanical vibrations in a nanomechanical resonator and explores their potential applications in quantum information processing. In this tutorial, we summarize various types of spin-mechanical resonators and discuss both the cavity-QED-like and the trapped-ion-like spin-mechanical coupling processes. The implementation of these processes using negatively charged nitrogen vacancy and silicon vacancy centers in diamond is reviewed. Prospects for reaching the full quantum regime of spin-mechanics, in which quantum control can occur at t…
We numerically investigate the decay of initial quantum Fock states and their superpositions for a mechanical resonator mode coupled to an environment comprising interacting, damped tunneling two level system (TLS) defects. The cases of one, three, and six near resonant, interacting TLS's are considered in turn and it is found that the resonator displays Ohmic bath like decay behavior with as few as three TLS's.
We study a system of two nanomechanical resonators embedded in a dc SQUID. We show that the inductively-coupled resonators can be treated as two entangled quantum memory elements with states that can be read from, or written on by employing the SQUID as a displacement detector or switching additional external magnetic fields, respectively. We present a scheme to squeeze the even modeof the state of the resonators and consequently reduce the noise in the measurement of the magnetic flux threading the SQUID. Wefinally analyze the effect of dissipation on the squeezing using the quantum master eq…
We present a hybrid quantum system composed of a magnetic vortex and a nanomechanical resonator. We show that the gyrotropic mode of the vortex can coherently couple to the quantized mechanical motion of the resonator through magnetic interaction. Benefiting from the topologically protected properties and the low damping of vortices, as well as the excellent coherent features of nanomechanical resonators, the proposed system can achieve strong coupling and even the ultrastrong coupling regime by choosing appropriate parameters. In combination with other quantum systems, such as a nitrogen-vaca…
An experimental demonstration of a non-classical state of a nanomechanical resonator is still an outstanding task. In this paper we show how the resonator can be cooled and driven into a squeezed state by a bichromatic microwave coupling to a charge qubit. The stationary oscillator state exhibits a reduced noise in one of the quadrature components by a factor of 0.5 - 0.2. These values are obtained for a 100 MHz resonator with a Q-value of 10$^4$ to 10$^5$ and for support temperatures of T $\approx$ 25 mK. We show that the coupling to the charge qubit can also be used to detect the squeezed st…
We seek the first indications that a nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) is entering the quantum domain as its mass and temperature are decreased. We find them by studying the transition from classical to quantum behavior of a driven nonlinear Duffing resonator. Numerical solutions of the equations of motion, operating in the bistable regime of the resonator, demonstrate that the quantum Wigner function gradually deviates from the corresponding classical phase-space probability density. These clear differences that develop due to nonlinearity can serve as experimental evidence, in the near fut…
We consider a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a double quantum dot. We demonstrate how the finite-frequency current noise spectrum through the double quantum dot can be used to distinguish classical and quantum behaviour in the nearby nano-electromechanical resonator. We also show how the full frequency current noise spectrum gives important information on the combined double quantum dot-resonator energy spectrum. Finally, we point out regimes where the quantum state of the resonator becomes squeezed, and also examine the cross-correlated electron-phonon current noise.
We study theoretically a radio frequency superconducting interference device integrated with both a nanomechanical resonator and an LC one. By applying adiabatic and rotating wave approximations, we obtain an effective Hamiltonian that governs the dynamics of the mechanical and LC resonators. Nonlinear terms in this Hamiltonian can be exploited for performing a quantum nondemolition measurement of Fock states of the nanomechanical resonator. We address the feasibility of experimental implementation and show that the nonlinear coupling can be made sufficiently strong to allow the detection of d…
We propose an active mechanism for coupling the quantized mode of a nanomechanical resonator to the persistent current in the loop of a superconducting Josephson junction (or phase slip) flux qubit. This coupling is independently controlled by an external coupling magnetic field. The whole system forms a novel solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) architecture in the strong coupling limit. This architecture can be used to demonstrate quantum optics phenomena and coherently manipulate the qubit for quantum information processing. The coupling mechanism is applicable for more generali…
We propose an approach for achieving ground-state cooling of a nanomechanical resonator (NAMR) capacitively coupled to a triple quantum dot (TQD). This TQD is an electronic analog of a three-level atom in $Λ$ configuration which allows an electron to enter it via lower-energy states and to exit only from a higher-energy state. By tuning the degeneracy of the two lower-energy states in the TQD, an electron can be trapped in a dark state caused by destructive quantum interference between the two tunneling pathways to the higher-energy state. Therefore, ground-state cooling of an NAMR can be achi…
We analyse the quantum dynamics of a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a normal-state single-electron transistor (SET). Starting from a microscopic description of the system, we derive a master equation for the SET island charge and resonator which is valid in the limit of weak electro-mechanical coupling. Using this master equation we show that, apart from brief transients, the resonator always behaves like a damped harmonic oscillator with a shifted frequency and relaxes into a thermal-like steady state. Although the behaviour remains qualitatively the same, we find that the magnitude of t…
We show that the nanoresonator position can be squeezed significantly below the ground state level by measuring the nanoresonator with a quantum point contact or a single-electron transistor and applying a periodic voltage across the detector. The mechanism of squeezing is basically a generalization of quantum nondemolition measurement of an oscillator to the case of continuous measurement by a weakly coupled detector. The quantum feedback is necessary to prevent the ``heating'' due to measurement back-action. We also discuss a procedure of experimental verification of the squeezed state.
We consider a theoretical model for a nonlinear nanomechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting microwave resonator. The nanomechanical resonator is driven parametrically at twice its resonance frequency, while the superconducting microwave resonator is driven with two tones that differ in frequency by an amount equal to the parametric driving frequency. We show that the semi-classical approximation of this system has an interesting fixed point bifurcation structure. In the semi-classical dynamics a transition from stable fixed points to limit cycles is observed as one moves from positiv…
We study a resonator coupled to a generic detector and calculate the noise spectra of the two sub-systems. We describe the coupled system by a closed, linear, set of Langevin equations and derive a general form for the finite frequency noise of both the resonator and the detector. The resonator spectrum is the well-known thermal form with an effective damping, frequency shift and diffusion term. In contrast, the detector noise shows a rather striking Fano-like resonance, i.e. there is a resonance at the renormalized frequency, and an anti-resonance at the bare resonator frequency. As examples …
We propose and study a spin-orbit interaction based mechanism to actively cool down the torsional vibration of a nanomechanical resonator made by semiconductor materials. We show that the spin-orbit interactions of electrons can induce a coherent coupling between the electron spins and the torsional modes of nanomechanical vibration. This coherent coupling leads to an active cooling for the torsional modes via the dynamical thermalization of the resonator and the spin ensemble.
We realise a circular gray-field polariscope to image stress-induced birefringence in thin (submicron thick) silicon nitride (SiN) membranes and strings. This enables quantitative mapping of the orientation of principal stresses and stress anisotropy, complementary to, and in agreement with, finite element modeling (FEM). Furthermore, using a sample with a well known stress anisotropy, we extract a new value for the photoelastic (Brewster) coefficient of silicon nitride, $C \approx (3.4~\pm~0.1)\times~10^{-6}~\mathrm{MPa}^{-1}$. We explore possible applications of the method to analyse and qua…
We study nanomechanical resonators with frequency fluctuations due to diffusion of absorbed particles. The diffusion depends on the vibration amplitude through inertial effect. We find that, if the diffusion coefficient is sufficiently large, the resonator response to periodic driving displays bistability. The lifetime of the coexisting vibrational states scales exponentially with the diffusion coefficient. It also displays a characteristic scaling dependence on the distance to bifurcation points.
Nanomechanical resonators, machined out of Silicon-on-Insulator wafers, are operated in the nonlinear regime to investigate higher-order mechanical mixing at radio frequencies, relevant to signal processing and nonlinear dynamics on nanometer scales. Driven by two neighboring frequencies the resonators generate rich power spectra exhibiting a multitude of satellite peaks. This nonlinear response is studied and compared to $n^{th}$-order perturbation theory and nonperturbative numerical calculations.
We describe a quantum computational architecture based on integrating nanomechanical resonators with Josephson junction phase qubits, with which we implement single- and multi-qubit operations. The nanomechanical resonator is a GHz-frequency, high-quality-factor dilatational resonator, coupled to the Josephson phase through a piezoelectric interaction. This system is analogous to one or more few-level atoms (the Josephson qubits) in a tunable electromagnetic cavity (the nanomechanical resonator). Our architecture combines the best features of solid-state and cavity-QED approaches, and may make…
Dynamic stabilization by simultaneous primary and superharmonic resonances for high order nonlinearity cancellation is demonstrated with an electrostatically-actuated, piezoresistively-transduced nanomechanical resonator. We prove experimentally how the combination of both the third-order nonlinearity cancellation and simultaneous resonances can be used to linearly drive a nanocantilever up to very large amplitudes compared to fundamental limits like pull-in occurrence, opening the way towards resonators with high frequency stability for high-performance sensing or time reference.
Engineered micro- and nanomechanical resonators with ultra-low dissipation constitute the ideal systems for applications ranging from high-precision sensing such as magnetic resonance force microscopy, to quantum transduction between disparate quantum systems. Traditionally, the improvement of the resonator's performance - often quantified by its Qf product (where Q is quality factor and f is frequency) - through nanomechanical engineering such as dissipation dilution and strain engineering, has been driven by human intuition and insight. Such an approach is inefficient and leaves aside a plet…
We report on a systematic study of nanomechanical dissipation in high-frequency (approximatively 300 MHz) gallium arsenide optomechanical disk resonators, in conditions where clamping and fluidic losses are negligible. Phonon-phonon interactions are shown to contribute with a loss background fading away at cryogenic temperatures (3 K). Atomic layer deposition of alumina at the surface modifies the quality factor of resonators, pointing towards the importance of surface dissipation. The temperature evolution is accurately fitted by two-level systems models, showing that nanomechanical dissipati…
We report a circuit cavity optomechanical system in which a nanomechanical resonator is adiabatically embedded inside an optical ring resonator with ultralow transition loss. The nanomechanical device forms part of the top layer of a horizontal silicon slot ring resonator, which enables dispersive coupling to the dielectric substrate via a tapered nanogap. Our measurements show nearly uncompromised optical quality factors (Q) after the release of the mechanical beam.
We present measurements on nanomechanical resonators machined from Silicon-on-Insulator substrates. The resonators are designed as freely suspended Au/Si beams of lengths on the order of 1 - 4 um and a thickness of 200 nm. The beams are driven into nonlinear response by an applied modulation at radio frequencies and a magnetic field in plane. The strong hysteresis of the magnetomotive response allows sensitive charge detection by varying the electrostatic potential of a gate electrode.
We describe the measurement and modeling of amplitude noise and phase noise in ultra-high Q nanomechanical resonators made from stoichiometric silicon nitride. With quality factors exceeding 2 million, the resonators' noise performance is studied with high precision. We find that the amplitude noise can be well described by the thermomechanical model, however, the resonators exhibit sizable extra phase noise due to their intrinsic frequency fluctuations. We develop a method to extract the resonator frequency fluctuation of a driven resonator and obtain a noise spectrum with dependence, which c…
We demonstrate how to build a vibrating wire resonator for phonon excitation in liquid helium. The resonator is designed as a nanoscopic mechanically flexible beam machined out of a semiconductor/metal-hybrid. Quenching of the mechanical resonance around 100 MHz by phonon excitation in liquid ^4He at 4.2 K is shown. First measurements operating the nano-resonator in a dilution of ^3He/^4He at 30 mK are presented.
We address quantitatively the relationship between the nonlinearity of a mechanical resonator and the nonclassicality of its ground state. In particular, we analyze the nonclassical properties of the nonlinear Duffing oscillator (being driven or not) as a paradigmatic example of a nonlinear nanomechanical resonator. We first discuss how to quantify the nonlinearity of this system and then show that the nonclassicality of the ground state, as measured by the volume occupied by the negative part of the Wigner function, monotonically increases with the nonlinearity in all the working regimes addr…
We present an analysis of the dynamics of a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting single electron transistor (SSET) in the vicinity of the Josephson quasiparticle (JQP) and double Josephson quasiparticle (DJQP) resonances. For weak coupling and wide separation of dynamical timescales, we find that for either superconducting resonance the dynamics of the resonator is given by a Fokker-Planck equation, i.e., the SSET behaves effectively as an equilibrium heat bath, characterised by an effective temperature, which also damps the resonator and renormalizes its frequency. Depending …
Nanomechanical resonators having small mass, high resonance frequency and low damping rate are widely employed as mass detectors. We study the performances of such a detector when the resonator is driven into a region of nonlinear oscillations. We predict theoretically that in this region the system acts as a phase-sensitive mechanical amplifier. This behavior can be exploited to achieve noise squeezing in the output signal when homodyne detection is employed for readout. We show that mass sensitivity of the device in this region may exceed the upper bound imposed by thermomechanical noise upo…
The small mass and high coherence of nanomechanical resonators render them the ultimate force probe, with applications ranging from biosensing and magnetic resonance force microscopy, to quantum optomechanics. A notorious challenge in these experiments is thermomechanical noise related to dissipation through internal or external loss channels. Here, we introduce a novel approach to defining nanomechanical modes, which simultaneously provides strong spatial confinement, full isolation from the substrate, and dilution of the resonator material's intrinsic dissipation by five orders of magnitude.…
We show two effects as a result of considering the second-order correction to the spectrum of a nanomechanical resonator electrostatically coupled to a Cooper-pair box. The spectrum of the Cooper-pair box is modified in a way which depends on the Fock state of the resonator. Similarly, the frequency of the resonator becomes dependent on the state of the Cooper-pair box. We consider whether these frequency shifts could be utilized to prepare the nanomechanical resonator in a Fock state, to perform a quantum non-demolition measurement of the resonator Fock state, and to distinguish the phase sta…
The rapid experimental progress in the field of superconducting nanocircuits gives rise to an increasing quest for advanced quantum-control techniques for these macroscopically coherent systems. Here we demonstrate theoretically that stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) should be possible with the quantronium setup of a Cooper-pair box. The scheme appears to be robust against decoherence and should be realizable even with the existing technology. As an application we present a method to generate single-phonon states of a nanomechnical resonator by vacuum-stimulated adiabatic passage wit…
Misfit strain is inevitable in various heterostructures like the graphene/MoS 2 van der Waals heterostructure. Although the misfit strain effect on electronic and other physical properties have been well studied, it is still unclear how will the misfit strain affect the performance of the nanomechanical resonator based on the graphene/MoS 2 heterostructure. By performing molecular dynamics simulations, we disclose a misfit strain-induced decoupling phenomenon between the graphene layer and the MoS 2 layer during the resonant oscillation of the heterostructure. A direct relationship between the…
The damping rates of high quality factor nanomechanical resonators are well beyond intrinsic limits. Here, we explore the underlying microscopic loss mechanisms by investigating the temperature-dependent damping of the fundamental and third harmonic transverse flexural mode of a doubly clamped silicon nitride string. It exhibits characteristic maxima reminiscent of two-level defects typical for amorphous materials. Coupling to those defects relaxes the momentum selection rules, allowing energy transfer from discrete long wavelength resonator modes to the high frequency phonon environment.
We present measurements of the dissipation and frequency shift in nanomechanical gold resonators at temperatures down to 10 mK. The resonators were fabricated as doubly-clamped beams above a GaAs substrate and actuated magnetomotively. Measurements on beams with frequencies 7.95 MHz and 3.87 MHz revealed that from 30 mK to 500 mK the dissipation increases with temperature as $T^{0.5}$, with saturation occurring at higher temperatures. The relative frequency shift of the resonators increases logarithmically with temperature up to at least 400 mK. Similarities with the behavior of bulk amorphous…
We investigate the tensile stress in freely suspended nanomechanical string resonators, and observe a material-independent dependence on the resonator length. We compare strongly stressed sting resonators fabricated from four different material systems based on amorphous silicon nitride, crystalline silicon carbide as well as crystalline indium gallium phosphide. The tensile stress is found to increase by approximately 50% for shorter resonators. We establish a simple elastic model to describe the observed length dependence of the tensile stress. The model accurately describes our experimental…
We report the design, fabrication, and characterization of diamond cantilevers attached to a phononic square lattice. We show that the robust protection of mechanical modes by phononic band gaps leads to a three-orders-of-magnitude increase in mechanical Q-factors, with the Q-factors exceeding 10^6 at frequencies as high as 100 MHz. Temperature dependent studies indicate that the Q-factors obtained at a few K are still limited by the materials loss. The high-Q diamond nanomechanical resonators provide a promising hybrid quantum system for spin-mechanics studies.
We study the transverse oscillatory modes of nanomechanical silicon nitride strings under high tensile stress as a function of geometry and mode index m <= 9. Reproducing all observed resonance frequencies with classical elastic theory we extract the relevant elastic constants. Based on the oscillatory local strain we successfully predict the observed mode-dependent damping with a single frequency independent fit parameter. Our model clarifies the role of tensile stress on damping and hints at the underlying microscopic mechanisms.
Two elastically coupled nanomechanical resonators driven independently near their resonance frequencies show intricate nonlinear dynamics. The dynamics provide a scheme for realizing a nanomechanical system with tunable frequency and nonlinear properties. For large vibration amplitudes the system develops spontaneous oscillations of amplitude modulation that also show period doubling transitions and chaos. The complex nonlinear dynamics are quantitatively predicted by a simple theoretical model.
We have developed capacitively-transduced nanomechanical resonators using sp$^2$-rich diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin films as conducting membranes. The electrically conducting DLC films were grown by physical vapor deposition at a temperature of $500{\,\,}^\circ$C. Characterizing the resonant response, we find a larger than expected frequency tuning that we attribute to the membrane being buckled upwards, away from the bottom electrode. The possibility of using buckled resonators to increase frequency tuning can be of advantage in rf applications such as tunable GHz filters and voltage-control…
We analyze the noise properties of two single electron transistors (SETs) coupled via a shared voltage gate consisting of a nanomechanical resonator. Working in the regime where the resonator can be treated as a classical system, we find that the SETs act on the resonator like two independent heat baths. The coupling to the resonator generates positive correlations in the currents flowing through each of the SETs as well as between the two currents. In the regime where the dynamics of the resonator is dominated by the back-action of the SETs, these positive correlations can lead to parametrica…
We observe transport of electrons through a metallic island on the tip of a nanomechanical pendulum. The resulting tunneling current shows distinct features corresponding to the discrete mechanical eigenfrequencies of the pendulum. We report on measurements covering the temperature range from 300 K down to 4.2 K. We explain the I-V curve, which differs from previous theoretical predictions, with model calculations based on a Master equation approach.
We present an experiment that systematically probes the basins of attraction of two fixed points of a nonlinear nanomechanical resonator and maps them out with high resolution. We observe a separatrix which progressively alters shape for varying drive strength and changes the relative areas of the two basins of attraction. The observed separatrix is blurred due to ambient fluctuations, including residual noise in the drive system, which cause uncertainty in the preparation of an initial state close to the separatrix. We find a good agreement between the experimentally mapped and theoretically …
We present an integrated scheme for dielectric drive and read-out of high-Q nanomechanical resonators which enables tuning of both the resonance frequency and quality factor with an applied DC voltage. A simple model for altering these quantities is derived, incorporating the resonator's complex electric polarizability and position in an inhomogeneous electric field, which agrees very well with the experimental findings as well as FEM simulations. By comparing two sample geometries we are able to show that careful electrode design can determine the direction of frequency tuning of flexural in-…
The Landau-Zener transition is a fundamental concept for dynamical quantum systems and has been studied in numerous fields of physics. Here we present a classical mechanical model system exhibiting analogous behaviour using two inversely tuneable, strongly coupled modes of the same nanomechanical beam resonator. In the adiabatic limit, the anticrossing between the two modes is observed and the coupling strength extracted. Sweeping an initialized mode across the coupling region allows mapping of the progression from diabatic to adiabatic transitions as a function of the sweep rate.
The dynamics of nanomechanical resonators driven by both low- and high-frequency signals is studied. Considering, as an example, resonators made of a doubly-clamped beam with magnetomotive driving, it is shown that three-frequency resonances arise due to the interaction of the above frequencies. Properties and characteristics of these resonances are determined analytically for linear and nonlinear modes of the resonator excitation. It is shown that in opposite to the conventional two-frequency resonance, the central frequency of these resonances, their linear dynamic range, and the critical va…
I study dephasing of an underdamped nanomechanical resonator subject to random mass loading of small particles. I present a frequency noise model which describes dephasing due to attachment and detachment of particles at random points and particle diffusion along the resonator. This situation is commonly encountered in current mass measurement experiments using NEM resonators. I discuss the conditions which can lead to inhomogeneous broadening and fine structure in the modes absorption spectra. I also show that the spectra of the higher order cumulants of the (complex) vibrational mode amplitu…
The energy dissipation 1/Q (where Q is the quality factor) and resonance frequency characteristics of single-crystal 3C-SiC ultrahigh frequency (UHF) nanomechanical resonators are measured, for a family of UHF resonators with resonance frequencies of 295MHz, 395MHz, 411MHz, 420MHz, 428MHz, and 482MHz. A temperature dependence of dissipation, 1/Q ~ T^(0.3) has been identified in these 3C-SiC devices. Possible mechanisms that contribute to dissipation in typical doubly-clamped beam UHF resonators are analyzed. Device size and dimensional effects on the dissipation are also examined. Clamping los…
Controlling the strain in two-dimensional materials is an interesting avenue to tailor the mechanical properties of nanoelectromechanical systems. Here we demonstrate a technique to fabricate ultrathin tantalum oxide nanomechanical resonators with large stress by laser-oxidation of nano-drumhead resonators made out of tantalum diselenide (TaSe2), a layered 2D material belonging to the metal dichalcogenides. Prior to the study of their mechanical properties with a laser interferometer, we checked the oxidation and crystallinity of the freely-suspended tantalum oxide in a high-resolution electro…
We experimentally study stochastic resonance in a nonlinear bistable nanomechanical resonator. The device consists of a PdAu doubly clamped beam serving as a nanomechanical resonator excited capacitively by an adjacent gate electrode and its vibrations are detected optically. The resonator is tuned to its bistability region by an intense pump near a point of equal transition rates between its two metastable states. The pump is amplitude modulated, inducing modulation of the activation barrier between the states. When noise is added to the excitation, the resonator's displacement exhibits noise…
