Phononic Frequency Combs For Engineering MEMS/NEMS Devices With Tunable Sensitivity

Published

January 13, 2020

Author(s)

Adarsh V. Ganesan, Ashwin Seshia, Jason J. Gorman

Abstract

Over the past two decades, MEMS resonators have received considerable attention for physical, chemical and biological sensing applications. Typically, the operation of MEMS resonant sensors relies on the tracking of a resonance frequency using a feedback oscillator. The sensitivity of these sensors is limited by physical parametric variations, as in the Young's modulus, and noise in the oscillator circuit, such that improvement in the sensitivity can require significant effort in the design, fabrication, ovenization, and control of the resonator. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate an alternative sensing approach based on a newly documented physical phenomenon, ‘phononic frequency combs', where the sensitivity can be actively tuned by the drive conditions. In addition, the spectral response of frequency combs enables an ‘N+1' fold enhancement in the sensitivity, with ‘2N+1' being the number of spectral lines associated with a frequency comb.

Conference Dates

October 27-30, 2019

Conference Location

Montreal, CA

Conference Title

IEEE SENSORS 2019

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/SENSORS43011.2019.8956642

Local Download

Keywords

MEMS resonator, mechanical resonator, sensor, temperature sensor, nonlinear dynamics, phononic frequency comb

Citation

Ganesan, A. , Seshia, A. and Gorman, J. (2020), Phononic Frequency Combs For Engineering MEMS/NEMS Devices With Tunable Sensitivity, IEEE SENSORS 2019, Montreal, CA, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/SENSORS43011.2019.8956642, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=929057 (Accessed October 9, 2025)