Shape tailoring to enhance and tune the properties of graphene nanomechanical resonators

TL;DR

This paper introduces a single-step focused ion beam milling technique to shape graphene into nanomechanical resonators with arbitrary geometries, significantly enhancing their mechanical quality factors and force sensitivity at room temperature.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel, efficient method for shaping presuspended graphene into customizable nanomechanical resonators with improved properties, surpassing traditional drumhead designs.

Findings

20-fold increase in mechanical quality factor (Q)

100-fold reduction in mechanical damping

Enhanced force sensitivity at room temperature

Abstract

The shape of a nanomechanical resonator profoundly affects its mechanical properties and determines its suitability for various applications, such as ultra-sensitive mass and force detection. Despite the promise of two-dimensional nanomechanical systems in such applications, full control over the shape of suspended two-dimensional materials, such as graphene, has not been achieved. We present an effective, single-step method to shape presuspended graphene into nanomechanical resonators with arbitrary geometries leading to enhanced properties in comparison to conventional drumheads. Our technique employs focused ion beam milling and achieves feature sizes ranging from a few tens of nanometers to several microns, while obtaining near perfect yield. We compare the mechanical properties of the shaped devices to unmodified drumheads, and find that low-tension, singlyclamped graphene cantilevers display a 20-fold increase in the mechanical quality factor (Q) with a factor 100 reduction in the mechanical damping. Importantly, we achieve these results while simultaneously removing mass, which enables state-of-the-art force sensitivity for a graphene mechanical resonator at room temperature. Our approach opens up a unique, currently inaccessible regime in graphene nanomechanics, one characterized by low strain, low frequency, small mass, and high Q, and facilitates tailoring of non-linearity and damping in mechanical structures composed of graphene and other 2D crystals.