Active self-Q-enhancement in high frequency thermally actuated M/NEMS resonators

This work demonstrates the self-Q enhancement capability of micro/nanomechanical thermal-piezoresistive resonators. Due to the existence of an internal feedback mechanism in one-port thermally actuated electromechanical resonators, such devices can compensate their mechanical energy loss by turning part of the electrical energy absorbed from their bias source into mechanical energy. This can lead to significantly improved resonator effective quality factors (Q). Over 1000X quality factor amplification and effective Q in the range of millions has been successfully demonstrated for high frequency thermally actuated single crystalline silicon resonators.