Surface elasticity-based modeling and simulation for dynamic and sensing performances of nanomechanical resonators

The dynamic and sensing performances of nanomechanical resonators with their different boundary conditions are studied based on surface elasticity-based modeling and simulation. Specifically, the effect of surface stress is included in Euler-Bernoulli beam model for different boundary conditions. It is shown that the surface effect on the intrinsic elastic property of nanowire is independent of boundary conditions, while these boundary conditions affect the frequency behavior of nanowire resonator. The detection sensitivity of nanowire resonator is remarkably found to depend on the boundary conditions such that double-clamping boundary condition results in the higher mass sensitivity of the resonator in comparison with simple-support or cantilever boundary condition. Furthermore, we show that the frequency shift of nanowire resonator due to mass adsorption is determined by its length, whereas the frequency shift is almost independent of its thickness. This study enables a design principle providing an insight into how the dynamic and sensing performances of nanomechanical resonator is determined and tuned.