Effects of volume and frequency scaling in AlN contour mode NEMS resonators on oscillator phase noise

This paper presents, for the first time, the analytical modeling and the experimental verification of the effects of volume and frequency scaling in AlN contour mode NEMS resonators (CMRs) on oscillator phase noise and associated limit of detection (LOD) when the device is used for sensing mass-induced frequency shifts. Both the analytical model and the experiments show that the LOD is improved by scaling the thickness of the AlN plate and by increasing the operating frequency of the device (i.e. implementing a high frequency resonant nano-plate). LOD values in the order of 10s of zg/μm² are experimentally extracted.