Vibration analysis of a carbyne-based resonator in nano-mechanical mass sensors

Abstract

Carbyne is a chain of C atoms held together by double or alternating single and triple chemical bonds, and has twice the tensile stiffness of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene sheets (GSs). In this study, we propose a nano-mechanical mass sensor using a tensioned carbyne resonator. The carbyne resonator is modeled as an equivalent continuum circular cross section beam with diameter 0.772 Å, Young’s modulus 32.71 TPa, shear modulus 11.8 TPa, Poisson’s ratio 0.386 and density 32.21 g cm−3. We analyze the resonant frequency of the proposed sensor carrying with a concentrated mass based on the Timoshenko beam theory and verify the theoretical approach using Rayleigh’s energy method and molecular dynamics simulation. The results show that the proposed mass sensor can measure a tiny mass with weight below 10−5 zg, and provide much higher sensitivity than CNTs- and GSs- based nano-mechanical mass sensors. In addition, the effects of carbyne length, mass position and tensile load on the frequency shift are also analyzed in detail, and it is preferred to use shorter carbyne and higher tensile load in the proposed mass sensor.