Effects of thermal noise on dynamic stress sensing of nanoelectromechanical resonators

Nanoelectromechanical resonators are promising high-sensitivity sensors for force, charge and mass detection. Presented is a dynamic stress-sensing technique using nano-scale suspended beams. Using magnetomotive transduction, the effective dynamic stress was measured on the beam from the resonance frequency at room temperature under a moderate vacuum. The sensitivity of the nano-scale resonator varied less than 1%, while its signal-to-noise ratio was reduced by about 30% in a muW electrothermal power range.