Quasicrystal Architected Nanomechanical Resonators via Data-Driven Design

TL;DR

This paper introduces a data-driven design approach to create quasicrystal-based nanomechanical resonators, achieving high quality factors and force sensitivity, expanding the potential of aperiodic structures in nanotechnology.

Contribution

It demonstrates that quasicrystal architectures can realize soft clamping and high-Q nanomechanical resonators, a novel application of aperiodic order in this field.

Findings

The 12-fold quasicrystal resonator achieved a quality factor of ~10^7.

The resonator has an effective mass of sub-nanograms at MHz frequencies.

Force sensitivity of 26.4 aN/√Hz was demonstrated, surpassing previous designs.

Abstract

From butterfly wings to remnants of nuclear detonation, aperiodic order repeatedly emerges in nature, often exhibiting reduced sensitivity to boundaries and symmetry constraints. Inspired by this principle, a paradigm shift is introduced in nanomechanical resonator design from periodic to aperiodic structures, focusing on a special class: quasicrystals (QCs). Although soft clamping enabled by phononic stopbands has become a central strategy for achieving high-$Q_m$ nanomechanical resonators, its practical realization has been largely confined to periodic phononic crystals, where band structure engineering is well established. The potential of aperiodic architectures, however, has remained largely unexplored, owing to their intrinsic complexity and the lack of systematic approaches to identifying and exploiting stopband behavior. Here we demonstrate that soft clamping can be realized in quasicrystal architectures and that high-$Q_m$ nanomechanical resonators can be systematically achieved through a data-driven design framework. As a representative demonstration, the 12-fold QC-based resonator exhibits a quality factor $Q_m \sim 10^7$ and an effective mass of sub-nanograms at MHz frequencies, corresponding to an exceptional force sensitivity of $26.4$~aN/$\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$ compared to previous 2D phononic crystals. These results establish QCs as a robust platform for next-generation nanomechanical resonators and open a new design regime beyond periodic order.