Achievement

IGERT Fellow Arthur Barnard and his collaborators have invented a new device that uses optical ring resonators to apply forces to and detect the motion of some of the smallest mechanical devices ever created -- devices fabricated from single-atom-thick sheets and tubes of carbon atoms. This new design can amplify or attenuate specific mechanical resonances, potentially revealing the as-yet-unknown physical mechanism underlying the high mechanical damping observed in nanoscale resonators. The ability to control the behavior of the mechanical resonators also offers a direct route to improved performance. This architecture may lead to devices capable of unprecedented sensitivities in low-mass detection as well as low-power, radio-frequency electronics.