Quality Factors and Energy Losses of Single-Crystal Silicon Nanowire Electromechanical Resonators

We report measurements on quality factors (Q's) of single-crystal silicon nanowire (SiNW) resonators operating in the very-high frequency (VHF) range. Q's of ~200 MHz metalized SiNWs are considerably lower than those of the pristine SiNWs operating at similar frequencies. The observed damping effect due to resonance transduction agrees well with the loaded-Q model for magnetomotive scheme. The temperature dependency of dissipation (Q^(-1)) is found to be approximately from Q^(-1) ∝ T^(0.3) to Q^(-1) ∝ T^(0.4). Clamping losses are becoming important for such VHF ultrasmall resonators.