Graphene mechanical oscillators with tunable frequency

Abstract

Oscillators, which produce continuous periodic signals from direct current power, are central to modern communications systems, with versatile applications such as timing references and frequency modulators. However, conventional oscillators typically consist of macroscopic mechanical resonators such as quartz crystals, which require excessive off-chip space. Here we report oscillators built on micron-size, atomically-thin graphene nanomechanical resonators, whose frequencies can be electrostatically tuned by as much as 14\%. The self-sustaining mechanical motion of the oscillators is generated and transduced at room temperature by simple electrical circuitry. The prototype graphene voltage controlled oscillators exhibit frequency stability and modulation bandwidth sufficient for modulation of radio-frequency carrier signals. As a demonstration, we employ a graphene oscillator as the active element for frequency modulated signal generation, and achieve efficient audio signal transmission.

18 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Probing thermal expansion of graphene and modal dispersion at low-temperature using graphene NEMS resonators
• A Nanoscale Parametric Feedback Oscillator
• Stamp transferred suspended graphene mechanical resonators for radio-frequency electrical readout
• SU-8 clamped CVD graphene drum resonators

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• Coupling graphene mechanical resonators to superconducting microwave cavities
• Mechanics of freely-suspended ultrathin layered materials
• Force sensitivity of multilayer graphene optomechanical devices
• Self-sustained micromechanical oscillator with linear feedback
• Time-domain response of atomically thin $\mathrm{Mo}{\mathrm{S}}_2$ nanomechanical resonators
• Direct and parametric synchronization of a graphene self-oscillator
• Graphene nanoelectromechanical resonators for detection of modulated terahertz radiation
• Tailoring 10 nm Scale Suspended Graphene Junctions and Quantum Dots
• Nonresonant high frequency excitation of mechanical vibrations in graphene based nanoresonator
• Control of resonant frequency by currents in graphene: Effect of Dirac field on deflection