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Applied Physics Letters 04/2012; 100:172101. · 3.84 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: At micro- and nanoscales, materials with high Young's moduli and low densities are of great interest for high-frequency micromechanical resonator devices. Incorporating carbon nanotubes (CNTs), with their unmatched properties, has added functionality to many man-made composites. We report on the fabrication of < or = 100-nm-thick laminates by sputter-deposition of aluminium onto a two-dimensional single-walled CNT network. These nanolaminates--composed of Al, its native oxide Al(2)O(3) and CNTs--are fashioned, in a scalable manner, into suspended doubly clamped micromechanical beams. Dynamic flexural measurements show marked increases in resonant frequencies for nanolaminates with Al-CNT laminae. Such increases, further supported by quasi-static flexural measurements, are partly attributable to enhancements in elastic properties arising from the addition of CNTs. As a consequence, these nanolaminate micromechanical resonators show significant suppression of mechanical nonlinearity and enhanced strength, both of which are advantageous for practical applications and analogous to biological nanocomposites, similarly composed of high-aspect-ratio, mechanically superior mineral platelets in a soft protein matrix.
Nature Material 06/2008; 7(6):459-63. · 32.84 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: We report on the dependence of resonant response to applied tensile stress in Al and Al-CNT (carbon nanotube) nanolaminate thin-film nanomechanical beam resonators. We optically measure the dynamic flexural response, while a chip-bending method is utilized to apply a static tension along its axis. For Al thin-film resonators, large and reversible increases in the resonant frequencies are observed along with near doubling of the resonator quality factor; while, for Al-CNT, largely unaffected with a slight decrease in resonant frequencies. Such behavior gives an insight on the role of CNT as a structural reinforcement in the Al thin-film based nanolaminate.Research highlights► Realized Al and Al-CNT nanolaminate nanomechanical beam resonators. ► Optically measured resonant frequency and Q-factor of Al and Al-CNT beam resonators. ► Chip-bending method is utilized to apply a tensile stress along beam axis.► Al shows large reversible increase in resonant frequency and Q-factor increase. ► Al-CNT shows slight decreasing in resonant frequencies and Q-factor.
Current Applied Physics 11(3):746-749. · 1.90 Impact Factor
