Ultrathin, Low‐Dissipation Nanomechanical Resonators of Single‐Crystal Diamond
Ultrathin single-crystal diamond (SCD) resonators offer exceptional potential for high-performance nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), but achieving sub-100 nm thickness with low dissipation remains a major fabrication challenge. In this work, we develop a smart-cut-assisted thinning strategy to reliably fabricate SCD cantilevers with thicknesses down to ~50 nm, representing the thinnest SCD NEMS cantilever achieved to date. Operating from 10 kHz to 3 MHz, these devices exhibit high-quality factors (∼5 × 10<sup>4</sup> at room temperature and ∼6 × 10<sup>3</sup> at 773 K). The resulting ultrathin resonators exhibit controllable geometries with resonance frequencies that closely follow the Euler-Bernoulli beam model, confirming high structural integrity. The cantilevers demonstrate robust thermal stability, with a low temperature coefficient of frequency of -10 ppm/K. As a result, the ultrathin diamond cantilevers yield a force sensitivity of ∼10<sup>-17</sup> N/Hz<sup>1/2</sup> and a mass resolution of ∼5.89 × 10<sup>-20</sup> kg, close to that of a carbon nanotube cantilever. This work establishes the strategy for batch fabrication of ultrathin SCD NEMS resonators as a highly promising platform for next-generation high-sensitivity and robust nanomechanical sensing.
Authors
- Meiyong Liao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1361-4266)
- Wenkai Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7436-2192)
- Zhaozong Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-8745-4469)
- Satoshi Koizumi
- Guo Chen
Institutions
- National Institute for Materials Science (JP)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Small
- Published
- 2026-03-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202514942
- Primary Topic
- Mechanical and Optical Resonators
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00