Nanoelectromechanical (NEMS) resonators are promising uncooled thermal infrared (IR) detectors to overcome existing sensitivity limits. Here, we investigated NEMS trampoline made of silicon nitride (SiN) as IR detectors. Trampolines have an enhanced responsivity more than two orders magnitude compared state-of-the-art SiN drums. The characterized yield a in terms noise equivalent power (NEP) 7 ...

NEMS (nanoelectromechanical systems) loom beyond the MEMS horizon as the new frontier in miniaturization. Nanorobots and other NEMS are expected to find revolutionary applications in science, engineering and everyday life. Until now, nanostructures have been built primarily in two dimensions, because of the difficulties of threedimensional (3-D) fabrication. This paper describes a promising app...

The mathematical modeling and analysis of electrostatically actuated microand nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS) has typically relied upon simplified electrostatic-field approximations to facilitate the analysis. Usually, the small aspect ratio of typical MEMS and NEMS devices is used to simplify Laplace’s equation. Terms small in this aspect ratio are ignored. Unfortunately, such an...

Diatoms are single-celled organisms with rigid parts in relative motion at the micrometre scale and below. These biogenic hydrated silica structures have elaborate shapes, interlocking devices, and, in some cases, hinged structures. The silica shells of the diatoms experience various forces from the environment and also from the cell itself when it grows and divides, and the form of these micro...

Experiments on micro- and nano-mechanical systems (M/NEMS) have shown that their behavior under bending loads departs in many cases from the classical predictions using Euler-Bernoulli theory and Hooke's law. This anomalous response has usually been seen as a dependence of the material properties on the size of the structure, in particular thickness. A theoretical model that allows for quantita...

The contact phase of an assembly task involving micro and nano objects is complicated by the presence of surface and intermolecular forces such as electrostatic, surface-tension and Van der Waals forces. Assembly strategies must account for the presence of these forces in order to guarantee successful repeatable micro and nanoassemblies with high precision. A detailed model for this electrostat...

Following recent insights into energy storage and loss mechanisms in nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), nanomechanical resonators with increasingly high quality factors are possible. Consequently, efficient, non-dissipative transduction schemes are required to avoid the dominating influence of coupling losses. Here we present an integrated NEMS transducer based on a microwave cavity dielectr...

The electronic properties of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) depend on the positions of their walls with respect to neighboring shells. This fact can enable several applications of MWCNTs as nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS). In this article, we report the findings of a first-principles study on the stability and dynamics of point defects in double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs) an...

We report an actuation/detection scheme with a top-down nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) for frequency shift based sensing applications with outstanding performance. It relies on electrostatic actuation and piezoresistive nanowire gauges for in-plane motion transduction. The process fabrication is fully CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) compatible. The results show a very large ...

Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations were performed to study nanoscale friction between two Si~111! surfaces covered with alkyl monolayers immersed in liquid solvents. Three pairs of interfaces, ranging from hydrophobic CH3 /CH3 to hydrophilic OH/OH, were studied. Three solvents, including water, methanol, and n-decane were used to represent different solvent polarities. It was showed ...