论文和技术资料

Micro-and nanoscale mechanical resonators have recently emerged as ubiquitous devices for use in advanced technological applications, for example in mobile communications and inertial sensors, and as novel tools for fundamental scientific endeavors. We report a significant advancement towards understanding and controlling support-induced losses through the demonstration of an efficient numerical solver capable of predicting the design-limited damping of generic mechanical resonators. The efficiency of this solver arises from exploiting the recently introduced “phonon-tunneling” approach. We have recently extended this work and developed an FEM-enabled solver, utilizing an eigenfrequency analysis in COMSOL Multiphysics in order to extract the imparted boundary stresses for the quality factor determination. Moreover, we demonstrate the first rigorous experimental test of support-induced losses and their strong geometric dependence. This work both complements and significantly extends current international efforts aimed at the understanding of fundamental dissipation processes in these devices. Thus, our phonon-tunneling solver represents a major step towards accurate prediction of the mechanical quality factor.