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Virginia Tech

Modeling and characterization of nanoelectromechanical systems

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Microelectromechanical structures (MEMS) are used commercially in sensor applications and in recent years much research effort has been done to implement them in wireless communication. Electron beam lithography and other advancements in fabrication technology allowed to shrink the size of MEMS to nanomechanical systems (NEMS). Since NEMS are just a couple of 100 nm in size, highly integrated sensor applications are possible. Since NEMS consume only little energy, this will allow continuous monitoring of all the important functions in hospitals, in manufacturing plants, on aircrafts, or even within the human body. This thesis discusses the modeling of NEM resonators. Loss mechanisms of macroscale resonators, and how they apply to NEM resonators, will be reviewed. Electron beam lithography and the fabrication process of Silicon NEM resonator will be described. The emphasis of this work was to build a test setup for temperature dependant measurements. Therefore different feasible techniques to detect nanoscale vibration will be compared and the setup used in this work will be discussed. The successful detection of nanoscale vibration and preliminary results of the temperature dependence of the quality factor of a paddle resonator will be reported. A new approach to fabricate NEM resonator using electrofluidic assembly will be introduced.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Materials Science and Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Materials Science and Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2002

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Duemling, Martin
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Evoy, Stephane
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Reynolds, William T. Jr.
  • Heflin, James R.

Subjects

dc:subject × 3

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-08192002-161831
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/34628

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Duemling, Martin. Modeling and characterization of nanoelectromechanical systems. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/34628