Mechanical and optical nanodevices in single-crystal quartz

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the fabrication of nanoscale electromechanical and photonic devices in single-crystal quartz using a novel angled-etching technique, enabling high-quality nanomechanical and optical resonators.

Contribution

It introduces a new fabrication method for creating nanoscale quartz devices, overcoming limitations of bulk crystal reliance and enabling integrated nanodevices.

Findings

Quartz nanomechanical cantilevers with Q of 4,900

Quartz ring resonators with Q of 8,900

Successful demonstration of nanoscale devices in quartz

Abstract

Single-crystal {\alpha}-quartz, one of the most widely used piezoelectric materials, has enabled a wide range of timing applications. Owing to the fact that integrated thin-film based quartz platform is not available, most of these applications rely on macroscopic, bulk crystal-based devices. Here we show that the Faraday cage angled-etching technique can be used to realize nanoscale electromechanical and photonic devices in quartz. Using this approach, we demonstrate quartz nanomechanical cantilevers and ring resonators featuring Qs of 4,900 and 8,900, respectively.