High Q factor for mechanical resonances of batch-fabricated SiC nanowires

The authors present here the measurements of high mechanical Q factors for singly clamped, batch-fabricated SiC nanowires measured by field emission (FE) in ultrahigh vacuum. The resonances of two nanowires, glued to the ends of tungsten support tips, were electrostatically excited and detected by the variation in the FE microscopy (FEM) images. Low amplitude oscillations were measured by numerical analysis of the FEM image blurring during frequency scans through the resonances. This avoided the artificial broadening of the resonances by nonlinear effects. A room temperature Q factor of 159 000 was achieved after high temperature in situ cleaning. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.