Limit to mass sensitivity of nanoresonators with random rough surfaces due to intrinsic sources and interactions with the surrounding gas

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how surface roughness and various noise sources affect the fundamental mass sensitivity limits of nanoresonators, highlighting the dominant factors and minimal impact of adsorption-desorption noise.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative assessment of the impact of surface roughness and different noise mechanisms on nanoresonator sensitivity limits.

Findings

Rougher surfaces increase sensitivity limits when thermomechanical noise dominates.

Thermomechanical noise has a greater impact than momentum exchange noise under certain conditions.

Adsorption-desorption noise plays a minimal role compared to other noise sources.

Abstract

We investigate initially the influence of thermomechanical and momentum exchange noise on the limit to mass sensitivity of nanoresonators with random rough surfaces, which are characterized by the roughness amplitude, the correlation length, and the roughness exponent H. In fact, the limit to mass sensitivity increases with increasing roughness (decreasing H and/or increasing ratio roughness amplitude/correlation length) if the quality factor associated with thermomechanical noise is larger than that due to momentum exchange noise. Finally, the influence of adsorption-desorption noise, which is also influenced by the surface morphology, is shown to play minimal role in presence of the other two noise sources.