High Dynamic Range Nanowire Resonators

Dynamic range quantifies the linear operation regime available in nanomechanical resonators. Nonlinearities dominate the response of flexural beams in the limit of very high aspect ratio and very small diameter, which leads to expectation of low dynamic range for nanowire resonators in general. However, the highest achievable dynamic range for nanowire resonators with practical dimensions remains to be determined. We report dynamic range measurements on singly clamped silicon nanowire resonators reaching remarkably high values of up to 90 dB obtained with a simple harmonic actuation scheme. We explain these measurements by a comprehensive theoretical examination of dynamic range in singly clamped flexural beams including the effect of tapering, a usual feature of semiconductor nanowires. Our analysis reveals the nanowire characteristics required for broad linear operation, and given the relationship between dynamic range and mass sensing performance, it also enables analytical determination of mass detection limits, reaching atomic-scale resolution for feasible nanowires.This work was supported by the ERC CoG Grant 681275 “LIQUIDMASS” and by the Spanish Science, Innovation and Universities Ministry through Projects “EXOFLUX” (PGC2018-101762-B-I00) and “MOMPs” (TEC2017-89765- R). E.G.-S. acknowledges financial support by Fundación General CSIC through the ComFuturo program. We acknowledge the service from the Micro and Nanofabrication Laboratory at IMN-CNM, funded by the Comunidad de Madrid (Project S2018/NMT-4291 TEC2SPACE) and by MINECO (Project CSIC13-4E-1794 with support from FEDER, FSE)