No abstract

Mechanical resonances are used in a wide variety of devices, from smartphone accelerometers to computer clocks and from wireless filters to atomic force microscopes. Frequency stability, a critical performance metric, is generally assumed to be tantamount to resonance quality factor (the inverse of the linewidth and of the damping). We show that the frequency stability of resonant nanomechanical sensors can be improved by lowering the quality factor. At high bandwidths, quality-factor reduction is completely mitigated by increases in signal-to-noise ratio. At low bandwidths, notably, increased damping leads to better stability and sensor resolution, with improvement proportional to damping. We confirm the findings by demonstrating temperature resolution of 60 microkelvin at 300-hertz bandwidth. These results open the door to high-performance ultrasensitive resonators in gaseous or liquid environments, single-cell nanocalorimetry, nanoscale gas chromatography, atmospheric-pressure nanoscale mass spectrometry, and new approaches in crystal oscillator stability.

[1] When the Radio Plasma Imager (RPI) on the IMAGE satellite operates in the inner plasmasphere and at moderate to low altitudes over the polar regions, pulses emitted at the low end of its 3-kHz to 3-MHz sounding frequency range can propagate in the whistler mode and/or in the Z mode. During soundings with both 25.6-ms pulses and 3.2-ms pulses, whistler mode echoes have been observed in (1) ''discrete,'' lightning whistlerlike forms and (2) diffuse, widely time spread forms suggestive of mode coupling at the boundaries of density irregularities. Discrete echoes have been observed at altitudes less than %5000 km both inside the plasmasphere and over the auroral and polar regions, being most common inside the plasmasphere. Diffuse echoes have also been observed at altitudes less than 5000 km, being most common poleward of the plasmasphere. Either discrete or diffuse echoes or both have been detected during one or more soundings on at least half of all IMAGE orbits. In regions poleward of the plasmasphere, diffuse Z mode echoes of a kind reported by Carpenter et al. (2003) were found to accompany both discrete and diffuse whistler mode echoes 90% of the time and were also present during 90% of the soundings when no whistler mode echoes were detected. It is proposed that the observed discrete whistler mode echoes are a consequence of RPI signal reflections at the bottom side of the ionosphere and that diffuse whistler mode echoes are a result of scattering of RPI signals by geomagnetic field-aligned electron density irregularities located within 2000 km earthward of the satellite and in directions close to that of the field line passing through IMAGE. Diffuse Z mode echoes are believed to be due to scattering of RPI signals from electron density irregularities within 3000 km of the satellite, particularly those in the generally cross-B direction. Consistent with previous works, our results indicate that the magnetosphere at high latitudes is highly structured, with electron density irregularities that exist over cross-B scales ranging from 10 m to 100 km and that profoundly affect whistler mode propagation. It is demonstrated that both kinds of whistler mode echoes as well as diffuse Z mode echoes have potential for local and remote diagnostics of electron density distributions and structures. , et al. (2004), Diagnostics of magnetospheric electron density and irregularities at altitudes <5000 km using whistler and Z mode echoes from radio sounding on the IMAGE satellite,

We report an experimental investigation of the adsorption properties of two important small-pore metal–organic framework (MOF) materials recently identified for gas separation applications, through the development and use of a high-pressure/high-temperature quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) device. In particular, we characterize in detail the CO2, CH4, and N2 adsorption characteristics of the MOFs Cu(4,4′-(hexafluoroisopropylidene)bisbenzoate)1.5 (referred to as Cu–hfipbb) and zeolitic imidazolate framework-90 (ZIF-90). We first describe the construction of a QCM-based adsorption measurement apparatus. Single-component adsorption isotherms of CO2, CH4, and N2 in the two MOFs were then measured at temperatures ranging from 30 to 70 °C and pressures ranging from 0.3 to 110 psi. In both materials, the order of adsorption strength is CO2 > CH4 > N2. We find that adsorption in the 1-D channels of Cu–hfipbb can be well described by a single-site Langmuir model. On the other hand, adsorption in ZIF-90 follows a more complex behavior, commensurate with its pore structure consisting of large porous cages connected in three dimensions by small windows. The nongravimetric QCM-based measurement techniques are shown to be a valuable microanalytical tool for the study of molecular adsorption in MOFs.