title: Ultra low power consumption for self-oscillating nanoelectromechanical systems constructed by contacting two nanowires.
abstract: We report here the observation of a new self-oscillation mechanism in nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). A highly resistive nanowire was positioned to form a point-contact at a chosen vibration node of a silicon carbide nanowire resonator. Spontaneous and robust mechanical oscillations arise when a sufficient DC voltage is applied between the two nanowires. An original model predicting the threshold voltage is used to estimate the piezoresistivity of the point-contact in agreement with the observations. The measured input power is in the pW-range which is the lowest reported value for such systems. The simplicity of the contacting procedure and the low power consumption open a new route for integrable and low-loss self-excited NEMS devices.
authors.affiliation: Institut Lumière Matière, UMR 5306 Université Lyon 1-CNRS, Université de Lyon, 69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Barois
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ayari
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vincent
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Perisanu
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Poncharal
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Purcell
mesh_terms: D060733:Electromagnetic Radiation; D004867:Equipment Design; D055617:Micro-Electrical-Mechanical Systems / Q000295:instrumentation; D036103:Nanotechnology; D043942:Nanotubes / Q000737:chemistry*; D053770:Nanowires / Q000737:chemistry*; D010316:Particle Size