Systematic analysis of carbon-based microdisk resonators

Abstract

Unique mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties of carbon-based nanomaterials make them particularly suited for the modern class of micro-electromechanical resonators. Among several micro/nano-electromechanical system (MEMS/NEMS) resonator components, microdisk profile resonators have recently gained significant attention due to their ultra-high-quality factors and facile system-on-chip integration. Here, we apply an analytical model for the dynamics of graphite microdisk resonators encompassing the effects of electrostatic, van der Waals and Casimir forces. We expound on the electrical and mechanical characteristics of the graphite disk resonator and compare the results to those of a conventional disk resonator made of Silicon. Our studies show that graphite has larger capacitance changes and hence larger electrical sensitivity. The first and second resonant peaks are determined to be around 38 MHz and 104 MHz. The larger amplitude response of graphite disk resonator can lead to a larger signal to noise ratio and a quality factor as high as 1.88 × 106, a four-fold increase compared to silicon. We applied the developed model to investigate the emerging class of 2-dimentional (2D) materials. We have shown that a one-atom thick graphene resonator can exhibit sixteen times larger resonant frequency than that of a graphite resonator. The proposed method can find applications in modeling the electromechanical behavior of a variety of resonating systems based on 3D/2D carbon-based nanomaterials.