Ultimate limits to inertial mass sensing based upon nanoelectromechanical systems

By K. Ekinci, Ya-Tang Yang, Michael L. Roukes. 2003

757 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Nanomechanical resonators can now be realized that achieve fundamental resonance frequencies exceeding 1 GHz, with quality factors (Q) in the range 10^3<=Q<=10^5. The minuscule active masses of these devices, in conjunction with their high Qs, translate into unprecedented inertial mass sensitivities. This makes them natural candidates for a variety of mass sensing applications. Here we evaluate the ultimate mass sensitivity limits for nanomechanical resonators operating in vacuo that are imposed by a number of fundamental physical noise processes. Our analyses indicate that nanomechanical resonators offer immense potential for mass sensing—ultimately with resolution at the level of individual molecules.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/be50dd544210c1652fa1360d64b48602f93c4799

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Materials Chemistry

Citations in the corpus

Surface stress effects on the resonant properties of metal nanowires: The importance of finite deformation kinematics and the impact of the residual surface stress (2008, background): “Because many of the proposed applications for nanowire-based NEMS, such as resonant mass sensing and high frequency oscillators (Craighead, 2000; Lavrik et al., 2004; Ekinci and Roukes, 2005) rely on the ability to control and tailor the nanowire resonant frequencies with a high degree of precision,”
Cantilever-like micromechanical sensors (2011, background): “giving rise to low Q-factors (around 100) [29].”
Nonlinear damping in a micromechanical oscillator (2009, background): “For example, in many cases the sensitivity of MEMS sensors is limited by thermal fluctuation [7, 29], which is related to damping via the fluctuation dissipation theorem.”
A nanomechanical mass sensor with yoctogram resolution. (2012, background): “2 analysis predicts that achieving a sensitivity of one yg should be feasible [8,9].”
Mechanical systems in the quantum regime (2011, background): “The goal is to be able to detect masse s with resolution better than 1 Dalton (the mass of a hydrogen atom) so that each element can be identified making i t a mass spectrometer [356].”