Giant Enhancement in the Thermal Responsivity of Microelectromechanical Resonators by Internal Mode Coupling

Abstract

We report on a giant enhancement in the thermal responsivity of the doubly-clamped GaAs microelectromechanical (MEMS) beam resonators by using the internal mode coupling effect. This is achieved by coupling the fundamental bending mode with the fundamental torsional mode of the MEMS beam resonators through the cubic Duffing nonlinearity. In the mode coupling regime, we have found that, when the input heat to the MEMS resonators is modulated at a particular frequency, the resonance frequency shift caused by heating can be enhanced by almost two orders of magnitude.The observed effect is promising for realizing high-sensitivity thermal sensing by using MEMS resonators, such as ultrasensitive terahertz detection at room temperature.

Ultrafast Detection of TeraHertz Radiation with Miniaturized Optomechanical Resonator Driven by Dielectric Driving Force

“…Considering the coupling efficiency of 0.66%, the internal responsivity is thus estimated to be R ∼ 3 Hz/nW. This performance is comparable to the recently reported MEMS bolometer in ref , whose responsivity is already enhanced by 2 orders of magnitude through the internal mode coupling. In comparison, the devices reported here are more compact and prone to large area integration; furthermore, their performance can be further enhanced by improving the collection efficiency through coupling with an additional antenna element …”

A Comprehensive Categorization of Micro/Nanomechanical Resonators and Their Practical Applications from an Engineering Perspective: A Review

“…Given the aforementioned unique features, they offer an unprecedented sensitivity to reliably detect physical quantities such as nanometer‐scale displacement, [ 27,28 ] acceleration, [ 29,30 ] temperature, [ 31–37 ] rotation rate, [ 38 ] pressure, [ 39 ] viscosity, [ 40 ] density, [ 41 ] molecular masses ranging from the attogram or even yoctogram resolution, [ 42–50 ] quantum state, [ 51 ] spin, [ 52,53 ] and force in the attoNewton and zeptoNewton level at room temperature [ 47,54,55 ] ( Figure ). For instance, Sahin et al.…”

“…For instance, Zhang et al. [ 35 ] demonstrated that internal coupling between the fundamental bending mode and fundamental torsional mode leads to giant thermal responsivity in a doubly clamped microbeam resonator. Therefore, unique dynamic features in nanostructures create new potentials for enhancing their detection sensitivity.…”

Quantized energy harvesting in vibrating maglev graphite driven by terahertz waves

“…For example, THz wave energy is small, resulting in little damage to cells and other organisms, so it has high biosafety, 45 and could be used to drive micro-nano robots in living organisms. However, the current focus is on the use of micro-nano mechanical systems to generate or control THz waves, [46][47][48][49][50][51][52] and the use of THz waves to drive micro-nano mechanical systems is less researched.…”