Experimental characterization of graphene by electrostatic resonance frequency tuning

In the last decade, graphene membranes have drawn tremendous attention due to their potential application in Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems. In this paper, we show that the frequency response curves of graphene resonators are powerful tools for their dynamic characterization and for extracting their equivalent Young's modulus. For this purpose, vibrations of an electrostatically actuated circular graphene membrane are studied both experimentally and numerically. The experiments reveal the dependency of the linear and nonlinear resonance frequency of the nano-resonator on the driving DC and AC voltages. A numerical model is proposed based on the nonlinear membrane theory, and by fitting the numerically calculated change in resonance frequency due to the DC voltage to those of the experimental observations, the Young's modulus is determined. It is shown that by using the obtained equivalent Young's modulus, the numerical model can accurately describe the nonlinear dynamics of the graphene membrane in other sets of measurements.Structural Optimization and MechanicsDynamics of Micro and Nano SystemsQN/Steeneken La