Pulsed mode operation of strained microelectromechanical resonators in air

A pulsed mode magnetomotive operation of micro- and nanoelectromechanical devices in air is demonstrated, where viscous damping determines the quality factor of the device. An enhancement of the quality factor by increasing the resonant frequency using strained resonator structures is proposed. Internal strain is the result of the thermal mismatch between heteroepitaxial SiC or AlN layers and the silicon substrates. Comparing unstrained and strained resonators, an increase of the quality factor by one order of magnitude from about 30 to 300 was achieved. This increase will improve the sensing performance of such resonant structures for an operation in ambient environment. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.