AC modeling of mechanical resonators based on carbon nanotubes

Abstract

High Q resonators are a critical component of stable, low-noise communication systems, radar, and precise timing applications such as atomic clocks. In electronic resonators based on Si integrated circuits, resistive losses increase as a result of the continued reduction in device dimensions, which decreases their Q values. On the other hand, due to the mechanical construct of bulk acoustic wave (BAW) and surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators, such loss mechanisms are absent, enabling higher Q-values for both BAW and SAW resonators compared to their electronic counterparts.¹ The other advantages of mechanical resonators are their inherently higher radiation tolerance, a factor which makes them attractive for NASA's extreme environment planetary missions, for example to the Jovian environments where the radiation doses are at hostile levels.² Despite these advantages, both BAW and SAW resonators suffer from low resonant frequencies and they are also physically large which precludes their integration into miniaturized electronic systems.