| AVS 57th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| MEMS and NEMS | Thursday Sessions |
| Session MN-ThM |
| Session: | Multi-scale Interactions of Materials at the Micro- and Nano-scale |
| Presenter: | R.A. Barton, Cornell University |
| Authors: | R.A. Barton, Cornell University R.B. Ilic, Cornell University S.S. Verbridge, Cornell University B.R. Cipriany, Cornell University J.M. Parpia, Cornell University H.G. Craighead, Cornell University |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Nanomechanical resonators operating in vacuum are capable of detecting and weighing single biomolecules, but their poor performance in liquid, a consequence of strong viscous damping, hinders many biological applications. One approach that has been demonstrated to improve the performance of resonant MEMS operating in contact with liquid, encapsulating the liquid within the resonator, had until this work not been extended to devices with effective mass smaller than ~100 ng. Here, we show that the practice of confining liquid within a resonator improves the performance of NEMS with mass as small as 100 pg. We optically actuate and detect the motion of doubly clamped beams containing fluidic channels with height 100 nm, which show quality factors as high as 800 when filled with fluid. We use these devices to measure fluid density, demonstrating a mass responsivity of 100 Hz/fg and a noise equivalent mass of 2 fg. We also demonstrate that the quality factor of the fluid-filled resonators is limited by the fluid, and discuss the physical mechanisms causing the enhanced dissipation. Our analysis suggests methods of improving the mass resolution of fluid-filled resonators and demonstrates their promise for novel biological applications.