Use of single-walled carbon nanotubes to increase the quality factor of an AT-cut micromachined quartz resonator

Abstract

In this letter, we report the suppression of loss mechanisms in an AT-cut quartz resonator operating in thickness shear mode using an over layer of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), and the resulting increase in the Q (quality) factor of the resonator by as much as 100%. The Q factor was found to monotonically increase as more SWNTs were added to the resonator. The increase in the Q factor of the resonators is thought to arise due to suppression of surface loss modes due to interaction of the carbon nanotubes with the quartz resonator surface. The use of SWNTs provides a very effective and simple way to improve the performance of quartz resonators.