# Ultrathin complex oxide nanomechanical resonators

## TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the fabrication and measurement of ultrathin complex oxide nanomechanical resonators, revealing phase transition signatures and enabling new studies of material properties without interface effects.

## Contribution

It introduces a top-down fabrication method for ultrathin complex oxide membranes and demonstrates their use as nanomechanical resonators to study phase transitions.

## Key findings

- Detection of structural phase transitions in eTiO3 via mechanical response
- Successful actuation and measurement of eTiO3 and eRuO3 nanodrum resonators
- Potential to extend this approach to various complex oxide materials

## Abstract

Complex oxide thin films and heterostructures exhibit a profusion of exotic phenomena, often resulting from the intricate interplay between film and substrate. Recently it has become possible to isolate epitaxially grown single-crystalline layers of these materials, enabling the study of their properties in the absence of interface effects. In this work, we create ultrathin membranes of strongly correlated materials and demonstrate top-down fabrication of nanomechanical resonators made out of \ce{SrTiO3} and \ce{SrRuO3}. Using laser interferometry, we successfully actuate and measure the motion of the nanodrum resonators. By measuring their temperature-dependent mechanical response, we observe signatures of structural phase transitions in \ce{SrTiO3}, which affect the strain and mechanical dissipation in the resonators. This approach can be extended to investigate phase transitions in a wide range of materials. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of integrating ultrathin complex oxide membranes for realizing nanoelectromechanical systems on arbitrary substrates.