Nanoscale Elasto-Capillarity in the Graphene-Water System under Tension: Revisiting the Assumption of a Constant Wetting Angle.

Wetting highly compliant surfaces can cause them to deform. Atomically thin materials, such as graphene, can have exceptionally small bending rigidities, leading to elasto-capillary lengths of a few nanometers. Using large-scale molecular dynamics (MD), we have studied the wetting and deformation of graphene due to nanometer-sized water droplets, focusing on the wetting angle near the vesicle transition. Recent continuum theories for wetting of flexible membranes reproduce our MD results qualitatively well. However, we find that when the curvature is large at the triple-phase contact line, the wetting angle increases with decreasing tension. This is in contrast to existing macroscopic theories but can be amended by allowing for a variable wetting angle.

Optomechanical Measurement of Thermal Transport in Two-Dimensional MoSe2 Lattices.

Nanomechanical resonators have emerged as sensors with exceptional sensitivities. These sensing capabilities open new possibilities in the studies of the thermodynamic properties in condensed matter. Here, we use mechanical sensing as a novel approach to measure the thermal properties of low-dimensional materials. We measure the temperature dependence of both the thermal conductivity and the specific heat capacity of a transition metal dichalcogenide monolayer down to cryogenic temperature, something that has not been achieved thus far with a single nanoscale object. These measurements show how heat is transported by phonons in two-dimensional systems. Both the thermal conductivity and the specific heat capacity measurements are consistent with predictions based on first-principles.

Corrigendum:(2013 Nanotechnology {\bf 24} 395702)]{Corrigendum: Frequency tuning, nonlinearities and mode coupling in circular mechanical graphene resonators (2013 Nanotechnology {\bf 24} 395702).

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Charge sensitivity enhancement via mechanical oscillation in suspended carbon nanotube devices.

Single electron transistors (SETs) fabricated from single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) can be operated as highly sensitive charge detectors reaching sensitivity levels comparable to metallic radio frequency SETs (rf-SETs). Here, we demonstrate how the charge sensitivity of the device can be improved by using the mechanical oscillations of a single-walled carbon nanotube quantum dot. To optimize the charge sensitivity δQ, we drive the mechanical resonator far into the nonlinear regime and bias it to an operating point where the mechanical third order nonlinearity is canceled out. This way we enhance δQ, from 6 µe/(Hz)(1/2) for the static case to 0.97 µe/(Hz)(1/2) at a probe frequency of ∼1.3 kHz.

Fermi-Pasta-Ulam physics with nanomechanical graphene resonators: intrinsic relaxation and thermalization from flexural mode coupling.

Thermalization in nonlinear systems is a central concept in statistical mechanics and has been extensively studied theoretically since the seminal work of Fermi, Pasta, and Ulam. Using molecular dynamics and continuum modeling of a ring-down setup, we show that thermalization due to nonlinear mode coupling intrinsically limits the quality factor of nanomechanical graphene drums and turns them into potential test beds for Fermi-Pasta-Ulam physics. We find the thermalization rate Γ to be independent of radius and scaling as Γ∼T*/εpre2, where T* and εpre are effective resonator temperature and prestrain.

Quantitative Predictions of the Thermal Conductivity in Transition Metal Dichalcogenides: Impact of Point Defects in MoS2 and WS2 Monolayers.

Transition metal dichalcogenides are investigated for various applications at the nanoscale because of their unique combination of properties and dimensionality. For many of the anticipated applications, heat conduction plays an important role. At the same time, these materials often contain relatively large amounts of point defects. Here, we provide a systematic analysis of the impact of intrinsic and selected extrinsic defects on the lattice thermal conductivity of MoS2 and WS2 monolayers. We combine Boltzmann transport theory and Green's function-based T-matrix approach for the calculation of scattering rates. The force constants for the defect configurations are obtained from density functional theory calculations via a regression approach, which allows us to sample a rather large number of defects at a moderate computational cost and to systematically enforce both the translational and rotational acoustic sum rules. The calculated lattice thermal conductivity is in quantitative agreement with the experimental data for heat transport and defect concentrations for both MoS2 and WS2. Crucially, this demonstrates that the strong deviation from a 1/T temperature dependence of the lattice thermal conductivity observed experimentally can be fully explained by the presence of point defects. We furthermore predict the scattering strengths of the intrinsic defects to decrease in the sequence VMo ≈ V2S= > V2S⊥ > VS > Sad in both materials, while the scattering rates for the extrinsic (adatom) defects decrease with increasing mass such that Liad > Naad > Kad. Compared with earlier work, we find that both intrinsic and extrinsic adatoms are relatively weak scatterers. We attribute this difference to the treatment of the translational and rotational acoustic sum rules, which, if not enforced, can lead to spurious contributions in the zero-frequency limit.

Determination of the bending rigidity of graphene via electrostatic actuation of buckled membranes.

Classical continuum mechanics is used extensively to predict the properties of nanoscale materials such as graphene. The bending rigidity, κ, is an important parameter that is used, for example, to predict the performance of graphene nanoelectromechanical devices and also ripple formation. Despite its importance, there is a large spread in the theoretical predictions of κ for few-layer graphene. We have used the snap-through behavior of convex buckled graphene membranes under the application of electrostatic pressure to determine experimentally values of κ for double-layer graphene membranes. We demonstrate how to prepare convex-buckled suspended graphene ribbons and fully clamped suspended membranes and show how the determination of the curvature of the membranes and the critical snap-through voltage, using AFM, allows us to extract κ. The bending rigidity of bilayer graphene membranes under ambient conditions was determined to be 35.5−15.0 +20.0 eV. Monolayers are shown to have significantly lower κ than bilayers.

Gunn-Hilsum Effect in Mechanically Strained Silicon Nanowires: Tunable Negative Differential Resistance.

Gunn (or Gunn-Hilsum) Effect and its associated negative differential resistivity (NDR) emanates from transfer of electrons between two different energy subbands. This effect was observed in semiconductors like GaAs which has a direct bandgap of very low effective mass and an indirect subband of high effective mass which lies ~300 meV above the former. In contrast to GaAs, bulk silicon has a very high energy spacing (~1 eV) which renders the initiation of transfer-induced NDR unobservable. Using Density Functional Theory (DFT), semi-empirical 10 orbital (sp3d5s*) Tight Binding and Ensemble Monte Carlo (EMC) methods we show for the first time that (a) Gunn Effect can be induced in silicon nanowires (SiNW) with diameters of 3.1 nm under +3% strain and an electric field of 5000 V/cm, (b) the onset of NDR in the I-V characteristics is reversibly adjustable by strain and (c) strain modulates the resistivity by a factor 2.3 for SiNWs of normal I-V characteristics i.e. those without NDR. These observations are promising for applications of SiNWs in electromechanical sensors and adjustable microwave oscillators. It is noteworthy that the observed NDC is different in principle from Esaki-Diode and Resonant Tunneling Diodes (RTD) in which NDR originates from tunneling effect.

Noise-tunable nonlinearity in a dispersively coupled diffusion-resonator system using superconducting circuits.

The harmonic oscillator is one of the most widely used model systems in physics: an indispensable theoretical tool in a variety of fields. It is well known that an otherwise linear oscillator can attain novel and nonlinear features through interaction with another dynamical system. We investigate such an interacting system: a superconducting LC-circuit dispersively coupled to a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). We find that the SQUID phase behaves as a classical two-level system, whose two states correspond to one linear and one nonlinear regime for the LC-resonator. As a result, the circuit's response to forcing can become multistable. The strength of the nonlinearity is tuned by the level of noise in the system, and increases with decreasing noise. This tunable nonlinearity could potentially find application in the field of sensitive detection, whereas increased understanding of the classical harmonic oscillator is relevant for studies of the quantum-to-classical crossover of Jaynes-Cummings systems.

Energy-dependent path of dissipation in nanomechanical resonators.

Energy decay plays a central role in a wide range of phenomena, such as optical emission, nuclear fission, and dissipation in quantum systems. Energy decay is usually described as a system leaking energy irreversibly into an environmental bath. Here, we report on energy decay measurements in nanomechanical systems based on multilayer graphene that cannot be explained by the paradigm of a system directly coupled to a bath. As the energy of a vibrational mode freely decays, the rate of energy decay changes abruptly to a lower value. This finding can be explained by a model where the measured mode hybridizes with other modes of the resonator at high energy. Below a threshold energy, modes are decoupled, resulting in comparatively low decay rates and giant quality factors exceeding 1 million. Our work opens up new possibilities to manipulate vibrational states, engineer hybrid states with mechanical modes at completely different frequencies, and to study the collective motion of this highly tunable system.

Buckled diamond-like carbon nanomechanical resonators.

We have developed capacitively-transduced nanomechanical resonators using sp(2)-rich diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin films as conducting membranes. The electrically conducting DLC films were grown by physical vapor deposition at a temperature of 500 °C. Characterizing the resonant response, we find a larger than expected frequency tuning that we attribute to the membrane being buckled upwards, away from the bottom electrode. The possibility of using buckled resonators to increase frequency tuning can be of advantage in rf applications such as tunable GHz filters and voltage-controlled oscillators.

Nonlinear phononics using atomically thin membranes.

Phononic crystals and acoustic metamaterials are used to tailor phonon and sound propagation properties by utilizing artificial, periodic structures. Analogous to photonic crystals, phononic band gaps can be created, which influence wave propagation and, more generally, allow engineering of the acoustic properties of a system. Beyond that, nonlinear phenomena in periodic structures have been extensively studied in photonic crystals and atomic Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices. However, creating nonlinear phononic crystals or nonlinear acoustic metamaterials remains challenging and only few examples have been demonstrated. Here, we show that atomically thin and periodically pinned membranes support coupled localized modes with nonlinear dynamics. The proposed system provides a platform for investigating nonlinear phononics.

Energy losses of nanomechanical resonators induced by atomic force microscopy-controlled mechanical impedance mismatching.

Clamping losses are a widely discussed damping mechanism in nanoelectromechanical systems, limiting the performance of these devices. Here we present a method to investigate this dissipation channel. Using an atomic force microscope tip as a local perturbation in the clamping region of a nanoelectromechanical resonator, we increase the energy loss of its flexural modes by at least one order of magnitude. We explain this by a transfer of vibrational energy into the cantilever, which is theoretically described by a reduced mechanical impedance mismatch between the resonator and its environment. A theoretical model for this mismatch, in conjunction with finite element simulations of the evanescent strain field of the mechanical modes in the clamping region, allows us to quantitatively analyse data on position and force dependence of the tip-induced damping. Our experiments yield insights into the damping of nanoelectromechanical systems with the prospect of engineering the energy exchange in resonator networks.

Continuum elastic modeling of graphene resonators.

Starting from an atomistic approach, we have derived a hierarchy of successively more simplified continuum elasticity descriptions for modeling the mechanical properties of suspended graphene sheets. We find that already for deflections of the order of 0.5 A a theory that correctly accounts for nonlinearities is necessary and that for many purposes a set of coupled Duffing-type equations may be used to accurately describe the dynamics of graphene membranes. The descriptions are validated by applying them to square graphene-based resonators with clamped edges and studying numerically their mechanical responses. Both static and dynamic responses are treated, and we find good agreement with recent experimental findings.

Direct transmission detection of tunable mechanical resonance in an individual carbon nanofiber relay.

A direct on-chip transmission measurement of the resonance frequency of an individual singly clamped carbon nanofiber relay is reported. The experimental results are in good agreement with a small signal model and show the expected tuning of the resonance frequency with changing bias voltage.