Mechanical losses of oscillators fabricated in silicon wafers

Abstract

Investigation of mechanical dissipation in silicon ribbons is important for the development of low noise silicon test mass suspension of the future interferometric gravitational wave detectors. Ribbon-like oscillators were fabricated in commercial silicon wafers using the anisotropic chemical wet etching technique. Results of measurement of the mechanical loss of such oscillators in the temperature range from 90 K to 300 K are presented. Suppression of thermoelastic loss down to at the temperature of about 124 K is observed.