Nanoelectromechanical resonant narrow-band amplifiers.

Alireza Ramezany,Siavash Pourkamali,Mohammad Mahdavi

doi:10.1038/micronano.2016.4

Alireza Ramezany, Siavash Pourkamali + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/micronano.2016.4

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Abstract

This study demonstrates amplification of electrical signals using a very simple nanomechanical device. It is shown that vibration amplitude amplification using a combination of mechanical resonance and thermal-piezoresistive energy pumping, which was previously demonstrated to drive self-sustained mechanical oscillation, can turn the relatively weak piezoresistivity of silicon into a viable electronic amplification mechanism with power gains of >20 dB. Various functionalities ranging from frequency selection and timing to sensing and actuation have been successfully demonstrated for microscale and nanoscale electromechanical systems. Although such capabilities complement solid-state electronics, enabling state-of-the-art compact and high-performance electronics, the amplification of electronic signals is an area where micro-/nanomechanics has not experienced much progress. In contrast to semiconductor devices, the performance of the proposed nanoelectromechanical amplifier improves significantly as the dimensions are reduced to the nanoscale presenting a potential pathway toward deep-nanoscale electronics. The nanoelectromechanical amplifier can also address the need for ultranarrow-band filtering along with the amplification of low-power signals in wireless communications and certain sensing applications, which is another need that is not efficiently addressable using semiconductor technology.

Highlights

MEMS resonators have drawn the attention of many researchers over the past two decades in hopes of enabling highly integrated on-chip timing and frequency selection
The resonant beam was selectively doped for field effect transduction, which is similar to a FET3; flexural beam NEMS resonators were integrated with FinFETs4; unreleased resonant body transistors were incorporated with n-channel field-effect transistor (FET) for piezoresistive sensing[5]; AlGaN piezoelectric transduction capability in combination with 2DEG electron gas at the AlGaN/GaN interface were utilized as the conducting channel for a high mobility field effect transistor[6]; and the motion sensing of a piezoelectric resonator in close proximity to a fabricated silicon nanochannel FET7
Aside from the overall significance of a desired low-power consumption for any electronic device, a high direct current (DC) power consumption typically leads to excessive heating and reliability issues, a reduction of the piezoresistive coefficient[11,12,13], and higher levels of thermal and mechanical noise

Summary

Introduction

MEMS resonators have drawn the attention of many researchers over the past two decades in hopes of enabling highly integrated on-chip timing and frequency selection. The the voltage transferred from the input to the load resistance alternating resistance of the piezoresistor RAC created by the external AC power at resonance along with a DC current can create a new source of internal AC power that can amplify the RL through the device and will be positive and smaller than unity; Gain = RL/(RL+RD).

Results

Conclusion