Nanowire resonators can be used to miniaturize energy-efficient electronics

said braka 6:33 AM
"Nano-electromechanical resonators are used in all sorts

of modern technology. You may not see them, but they can be found in robotics, medical tools and environmental sensors," says Osaka University Professor Hidezaku Tanaka, who is developing new nanotechnologies.
Earlier this year, Tanaka and his research team reported a freestanding nanowire that could reduce the power demands of nano-resonators by a factor of one hundred.
"Transition metals undergo an insulator to metal transition. We made freestanding  made of vanadium dioxide (VO2) that had high performance at low power."
The phase transition can occur by injecting  into VO2 crystals. Because the mechanical response to the power is non-linear, Tanaka showed that unprecedented low levels of power could be used to generate a disproportionally strong mechanical response. Tanaka found that the freestanding character of the wire is key, as otherwise the non-linearity and thus the energy efficiency was much less.
"Building the freestanding nanowire was not easy. Metal oxides are very stiff and brittle. We could fabricate the nanowires by growing them on magnesium oxide (MgO) and then etching the MgO layer away."
In his latest publication, the collaboration team by Tanaka group, Professor Daniele Marré group in Italy and Dr. Nicola Manca in the Netherlands group to determine just how simple the construction of nano-resonators using his VO2 freestanding nanowires could be. Because of the electro-mechanical properties of VO2 crystals and his freestanding design, the nanowires could generate mechanical oscillations at MHz frequencies using nothing more than a simple DC power source. This efficient conversion of electrical energy to mechanical work reduces the need for dedicated electronic devices, thus enabling the creation of even smaller nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS) than currently used.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-nanowire-resonators-miniaturize-energy-efficient-electronics.html#jCp