Graphene-Based Nanoelectromechanical Periodic Array with Tunable Frequency

Graphene MEMS and NEMS

Graphene is being increasingly used as an interesting transducer membrane in micro- and nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS, respectively) due to its atomical thickness, extremely high carrier mobility, high mechanical strength, and piezoresistive electromechanical transductions. NEMS devices based on graphene feature increased sensitivity, reduced size, and new functionalities. In this review, we discuss the merits of graphene as a functional material for MEMS and NEMS, the related properties of graphene, the transduction mechanisms of graphene MEMS and NEMS, typical transfer methods for integrating graphene with MEMS substrates, methods for fabricating suspended graphene, and graphene patterning and electrical contact. Consequently, we provide an overview of devices based on suspended and nonsuspended graphene structures. Finally, we discuss the potential and challenges of applications of graphene in MEMS and NEMS. Owing to its unique features, graphene is a promising material for emerging MEMS, NEMS, and sensor applications.

Emerging Spintronic Materials and Functionalities

The explosive growth of the information era has put forward urgent requirements for ultrahigh-speed and extremely efficient computations. In direct contrary to charge-based computations, spintronics aims to use spins as information carriers for data storage, transmission, and decoding, to help fully realize electronic device miniaturization and high integration for next-generation computing technologies. Currently, many novel spintronic materials have been developed with unique properties and multifunctionalities, including organic semiconductors (OSCs), organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites (OIHPs), and 2D materials (2DMs). These materials are useful to fulfill the demand for developing diverse and advanced spintronic devices. Herein, these promising materials are systematically reviewed for advanced spintronic applications. Due to the distinct chemical and physical structures of OSCs, OIHPs, and 2DMs, their spintronic properties (spin transport and spin manipulation) are discussed separately. In addition, some multifunctionalities due to photoelectric and chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) are overviewed, including the spin-filter effect, spin-photovoltaics, spin-light emitting devices, and spin-transistor functions. Subsequently, challenges and future perspectives of using these multifunctional materials for the development of advanced spintronics are presented.

Observation of Free-Boundary-Induced Chiral Anomaly Bulk States in Elastic Twisted Kagome Metamaterials

Chiral anomaly bulk states (CABSs) can be realized by choosing appropriate boundary conditions in a finite-size waveguide composed of two-dimensional Dirac semimetals, which have unidirectional and robust transport similar to that of valley edge states. CABSs use almost all available guiding space, which greatly improves the utilization of metamaterials. Here, free-boundary-induced CABSs in elastic twisted kagome metamaterials with C_{3v} symmetry are experimentally confirmed. The robust valley-locked transport and complete valley state conversion are experimentally observed. Importantly, the sign of the group velocity near the K and K^{'} points can be reversed by suspending masses at the boundary to manipulate the onsite potential. Moreover, CABSs are demonstrated in nanoelectromechanical phononic crystals by constructing an impedance-mismatched hard boundary. These results open new possibilities for designing more compact, space-efficient, and robust elastic wave macro- and microfunctional devices.

Coupled Nanomechanical Graphene Resonators: A Promising Platform for Scalable NEMS Networks

Arrays of coupled nanoelectromechanical resonators are a promising foundation for implementing large-scale network applications, such as mechanical-based information processing and computing, but their practical realization remains an outstanding challenge. In this work, we demonstrate a scalable platform of suspended graphene resonators, such that neighboring resonators are persistently coupled mechanically. We provide evidence of strong coupling between neighboring resonators using two different tuning methods. Additionally, we provide evidence of inter-resonator coupling of higher-order modes, demonstrating the rich dynamics that can be accessed with this platform. Our results establish this platform as a viable option for realizing large-scale programmable networks, enabling applications such as phononic circuits, tunable waveguides, and reconfigurable metamaterials.

Mechanically-tunable bandgap closing in 2D graphene phononic crystals

We present a tunable phononic crystal which can be switched from a mechanically insulating to a mechanically conductive (transmissive) state. Specifically, in our simulations for a phononic lattice under biaxial tension (σ xx = σ yy = 0.01 N m-1), we find a bandgap for out-of-plane phonons in the range of 48.8-56.4 MHz, which we can close by increasing the degree of tension uniaxiality (σ xx/σ yy) to 1.7. To manipulate the tension distribution, we design a realistic device of finite size, where σ xx/σ yy is tuned by applying a gate voltage to a phononic crystal made from suspended graphene. We show that the bandgap closing can be probed via acoustic transmission measurements and that the phononic bandgap persists even after the inclusion of surface contaminants and random tension variations present in realistic devices. The proposed system acts as a transistor for MHz-phonons with an on/off ratio of 105 (100 dB suppression) and is thus a valuable extension for phonon logic applications. In addition, the transition from conductive to isolating can be seen as a mechanical analogue to a metal-insulator transition and allows tunable coupling between mechanical entities (e.g. mechanical qubits).

Nanomechanical Resonators: Toward Atomic Scale

The quest for realizing and manipulating ever smaller man-made movable structures and dynamical machines has spurred tremendous endeavors, led to important discoveries, and inspired researchers to venture to previously unexplored grounds. Scientific feats and technological milestones of miniaturization of mechanical structures have been widely accomplished by advances in machining and sculpturing ever shrinking features out of bulk materials such as silicon. With the flourishing multidisciplinary field of low-dimensional nanomaterials, including one-dimensional (1D) nanowires/nanotubes and two-dimensional (2D) atomic layers such as graphene/phosphorene, growing interests and sustained effort have been devoted to creating mechanical devices toward the ultimate limit of miniaturization─genuinely down to the molecular or even atomic scale. These ultrasmall movable structures, particularly nanomechanical resonators that exploit the vibratory motion in these 1D and 2D nano-to-atomic-scale structures, offer exceptional device-level attributes, such as ultralow mass, ultrawide frequency tuning range, broad dynamic range, and ultralow power consumption, thus holding strong promises for both fundamental studies and engineering applications. In this Review, we offer a comprehensive overview and summary of this vibrant field, present the state-of-the-art devices and evaluate their specifications and performance, outline important achievements, and postulate future directions for studying these miniscule yet intriguing molecular-scale machines.

Coherent Phononics of van der Waals Layers on Nanogratings

Strain engineering can be used to control the physical properties of two-dimensional van der Waals (2D-vdW) crystals. Coherent phonons, which carry dynamical strain, could push strain engineering to control classical and quantum phenomena in the unexplored picosecond temporal and nanometer spatial regimes. This intriguing approach requires the use of coherent GHz and sub-THz 2D phonons. Here, we report on nanostructures that combine nanometer thick vdW layers and nanogratings. Using an ultrafast pump-probe technique, we generate and detect in-plane coherent phonons with frequency up to 40 GHz and hybrid flexural phonons with frequency up to 10 GHz. The latter arises from the periodic modulation of the elastic coupling of the vdW layer at the grooves and ridges of the nanograting. This creates a new type of a tailorable 2D periodic phononic nanoobject, a flexural phononic crystal, offering exciting prospects for the ultrafast manipulation of states in 2D materials in emerging quantum technologies.

A Review on Graphene-Based Nano-Electromechanical Resonators: Fabrication, Performance, and Applications

The emergence of graphene and other two-dimensional materials overcomes the limitation in the characteristic size of silicon-based micro-resonators and paved the way in the realization of nano-mechanical resonators. In this paper, we review the progress to date of the research on the fabrication methods, resonant performance, and device applications of graphene-based nano-mechanical resonators, from theoretical simulation to experimental results, and summarize both the excitation and detection schemes of graphene resonators. In recent years, the applications of graphene resonators such as mass sensors, pressure sensors, and accelerometers gradually moved from theory to experiment, which are specially introduced in this review. To date, the resonance performance of graphene-based nano-mechanical resonators is widely studied by theoretical approaches, while the corresponding experiments are still in the preliminary stage. However, with the continuous progress of the device fabrication and detection technique, and with the improvement of the theoretical model, suspended graphene membranes will widen the potential for ultralow-loss and high-sensitivity mechanical resonators in the near future.