Researchers in Canada have constructed and measured the highest
frequency silicon cantilever yet reported.
Made on a silicon-on-insulator wafer in the 147nm-thick silicon
layer, the 400nm by 120nm wide cantilever oscillated at
1.04GHz.
The team, from the University of
Alberta, the
Canadian National
Institute for Nanotechnology, and a firm
called Norcada,
constructed the cantilever as part of a project to control and
measure MEMS in the time domain.
Devices from 10MHz to 1GHz were made, and measured using a laser
technique.
Results show cantilevers can be set to oscillate, and also
stopped almost completely, by carefully-timed rectangular force
pulses applied electrostatically.
"They can turn on and turn off the oscillation of the resonator
in less than one oscillation cycle - like un-ringing a bell - in
less than a nanosecond," said a project spokesman.
"This level of control over nano-cantilever resonators makes it
much more likely they could be used as digital devices in
communication, memory and computation."