Improved resonance characteristics of GaAs beam resonators by epitaxially induced strain

Micromechanical-beam resonators were fabricated using a strained GaAs film grown on relaxed In0.1Ga0.9As∕In0.1Al0.9As buffer layers. The natural frequency of the fundamental mode was increased 2.5–4 times by applying tensile strain, showing good agreement with the model calculation assuming strain of 0.35% along the beam. In addition, the Q factor of 19 000 was obtained for the best sample, which is one order of magnitude higher than that for the unstrained resonator. This technique can be widely applied for improving the performance of resonator-based micro-/nanoelectromechanical devices.

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