- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Applied

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Monolithic 4H-SiC nanomechanical resonators with high intrinsic quality factors

A. Hochreiter1,*, P. Bredol2,*, F. David2, B. Demiralp2, H.B. Weber1, and E.M. Weig2,3,4,†

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: eva.weig@tum.de
PDF

Phys. Rev. Applied 24, 034005 – Published 3 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/vclj-v8qx

Abstract

We present an extensive study of 4H-SiC nanomechanical resonators electrochemically etched out of a monocrystalline wafer. Combining piezo-driven interferometric determination of the mechanical spectra with scanning laser Doppler vibrometry, an unambiguous assignment of resonance peaks to flexural and torsional modes is achieved. The investigation of multiple harmonic eigenmodes of singly and doubly clamped resonators with varying geometry allows for a comprehensive characterization. Excellent intrinsic mechanical quality factors up to 2×105 are found at room temperature, approaching the thermoelastic limit at eigenfrequencies exceeding 10 MHz. Mechanical stress is essentially absent. Young’s modulus is in agreement with the literature. These findings are robust under postprocessing treatments, in particular atomic layer etching and high-temperature thermal annealing. The resulting on-chip high-quality mechanical resonators represent a valuable technological element for a broad range of applications. In particular, the monolithic architecture meets the requirements of spin-based photonic quantum technologies on the upcoming SiC platform.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (56)

  1. D. M. Lukin, M. A. Guidry, and J. Vučković, Integrated quantum photonics with silicon carbide: Challenges and prospects, PRX Quantum 1, 020102 (2020).
  2. D. M. Lukin, C. Dory, M. A. Guidry, K. Y. Yang, S. D. Mishra, R. Trivedi, M. Radulaski, S. Sun, D. Vercruysse, G. H. Ahn, et al., 4H-silicon-carbide-on-insulator for integrated quantum and nonlinear photonics, Nat. Photonics 14, 330 (2020).
  3. J. Yang, M. A. Guidry, D. M. Lukin, K. Yang, and J. Vučković, Inverse-designed silicon carbide quantum and nonlinear photonics, Light: Sci. Appl. 12, 201 (2023).
  4. H. Sato, M. Abe, I. Shoji, J. Suda, and T. Kondo, Accurate measurements of second-order nonlinear optical coefficients of 6H and 4H silicon carbide, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 26, 1892 (2009).
  5. F. De Leonardis, R. A. Soref, and V. Passaro, Dispersion of nonresonant third-order nonlinearities in silicon carbide, Sci. Rep. 7, 1 (2017).
  6. J. R. Dietz, B. Jiang, A. M. Day, S. A. Bhave, and E. L. Hu, Spin-acoustic control of silicon vacancies in 4H silicon carbide, Nat. Electron. 6, 739 (2023).
  7. R. Nagy, M. Niethammer, M. Widmann, Y.-C. Chen, P. Udvarhelyi, C. Bonato, J. U. Hassan, R. Karhu, I. G. Ivanov, N. T. Son, et al., High-fidelity spin and optical control of single silicon-vacancy centres in silicon carbide, Nat. Commun. 10, 1 (2019).
  8. P. Udvarhelyi, G. Thiering, N. Morioka, C. Babin, F. Kaiser, D. Lukin, T. Ohshima, J. Ul-Hassan, N. T. Son, J. Vučković, et al., Vibronic states and their effect on the temperature and strain dependence of silicon-vacancy qubits in 4H-SiC, Phys. Rev. Appl. 13, 054017 (2020).
  9. L. Sementilli, E. Romero, and W. P. Bowen, Nanomechanical dissipation and strain engineering, Adv. Funct. Mater. 32, 2105247 (2021).
  10. N. J. Engelsen, A. Beccari, and T. J. Kippenberg, Ultrahigh-quality-factor micro- and nanomechanical resonators using dissipation dilution, Nat. Nanotechnol. 19, 725 (2024).
  11. S. Ghaffari, S. A. Chandorkar, S. Wang, E. J. Ng, C. H. Ahn, V. Hong, Y. Yang, and T. W. Kenny, Quantum limit of quality factor in silicon micro and nano mechanical resonators, Sci. Rep. 3, 1 (2013).
  12. B. Hamelin, J. Yang, A. Daruwalla, H. Wen, and F. Ayazi, Monocrystalline silicon carbide disk resonators on phononic crystals with ultra-low dissipation bulk acoustic wave modes, Sci. Rep. 9, 1 (2019).
  13. M. Imboden and P. Mohanty, Dissipation in nanoelectromechanical systems, Phys. Rep. 534, 89 (2014).
  14. A. Hochreiter, F. Groß, M.-N. Möller, M. Krieger, and H. B. Weber, Electrochemical etching strategy for shaping monolithic 3D structures from 4H-SiC wafers, Sci. Rep. 13, 19086 (2023).
  15. M. Rühl, C. Ott, S. Götzinger, M. Krieger, and H. B. Weber, Controlled generation of intrinsic near-infrared color centers in 4H-SiC via proton irradiation and annealing, Appl. Phys. Lett. 113, 122102 (2018).
  16. K. V. Emtsev, A. Bostwick, K. Horn, J. Jobst, G. L. Kellogg, L. Ley, J. L. McChesney, T. Ohta, S. A. Reshanov, J. Röhrl, et al., Towards wafer-size graphene layers by atmospheric pressure graphitization of silicon carbide, Nat. Mater. 8, 203 (2009).
  17. L. Sementilli, D. M. Lukin, H. Lee, J. Yang, E. Romero, J. Vučković, and W. P. Bowen, Low-dissipation nanomechanical devices from monocrystalline silicon carbide, Nano Lett. 25, 6069 (2025).
  18. T. H. Metcalf, B. B. Pate, D. M. Photiadis, and B. H. Houston, Thermoelastic damping in micromechanical resonators, Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 061903 (2009).
  19. L. G. Villanueva and S. Schmid, Evidence of surface loss as ubiquitous limiting damping mechanism in SiN micro- and nanomechanical resonators, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 227201 (2014).
  20. E. Romero, V. M. Valenzuela, A. R. Kermany, L. Sementilli, F. Iacopi, and W. P. Bowen, Engineering the dissipation of crystalline micromechanical resonators, Phys. Rev. Appl. 13, 044007 (2020).
  21. M. Xu, D. Shin, P. M. Sberna, R. van der Kolk, A. Cupertino, M. A. Bessa, and R. A. Norte, High-strength amorphous silicon carbide for nanomechanics, Adv. Mater. 36, 2306513 (2024).
  22. S. K. Manjeshwar, A. Ciers, F. Hellman, J. Bläsing, A. Strittmatter, and W. Wieczorek, High-q trampoline resonators from strained crystalline ingap for integrated free-space optomechanics, Nano Lett. 23, 5076 (2023).
  23. A. Ciers, A. Jung, J. Ciers, L. R. Nindito, H. Pfeifer, A. Dadgar, A. Strittmatter, and W. Wieczorek, Nanomechanical crystalline AlN resonators with high quality factors for quantum optoelectromechanics, Adv. Mater. 36, 2403155 (2024).
  24. D. Cadeddu, F. R. Braakman, G. Tütüncüoglu, F. Matteini, D. Rüffer, A. Fontcuberta i Morral, and M. Poggio, Time-resolved nonlinear coupling between orthogonal flexural modes of a pristine gaas nanowire, Nano Lett. 16, 926 (2016).
  25. Y. Tao, J. M. Boss, B. A. Moores, and C. L. Degen, Single-crystal diamond nanomechanical resonators with quality factors exceeding one million, Nat. Commun. 5, 3638 (2014).
  26. K. Adachi, N. Watanabe, H. Okamoto, H. Yamaguchi, T. Kimoto, and J. Suda, Single-crystalline 4H-SiC micro cantilevers with a high quality factor, Sens. Actuators, A 197, 122 (2013).
  27. K. Sato, K. Adachi, H. Okamoto, H. Yamaguchi, T. Kimoto, and J. Suda, in Silicon Carbide and Related Materials 2013, Materials Science Forum (Trans Tech Publications Ltd, Switzerland, 2014), Vol. 778, p. 780.
  28. C. R. Locke, M. E. Tobar, and E. N. Ivanov, Monolithic sapphire parametric transducer operation at cryogenic temperatures, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 71, 2737 (2000).
  29. S. Galliou, J. Imbaud, M. Goryachev, R. Bourquin, and P. Abbé, Losses in high quality quartz crystal resonators at cryogenic temperatures, Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 091911 (2011).
  30. G. I. González and P. R. Saulson, Brownian motion of a mass suspended by an anelastic wire, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 96, 207 (1994).
  31. M. Kajima, N. Kusumi, S. Moriwaki, and N. Mio, Wide-band measurement of mechanical thermal noise using a laser interferometer, Phys. Lett. A 264, 251 (1999).
  32. A. Bernardini, E. Majorana, Y. Ogawa, P. Puppo, P. Rapagnani, F. Ricci, and G. Testi, Characterization of mechanical dissipation spectral behavior using a gravitomagnetic pendulum, Phys. Lett. A 255, 142 (1999).
  33. S. Fedorov, V. Sudhir, R. Schilling, H. Schütz, D. Wilson, and T. Kippenberg, Evidence for structural damping in a high-stress silicon nitride nanobeam and its implications for quantum optomechanics, Phys. Lett. A 382, 2251 (2017).
  34. Y. Klaß, I. Wilson-Rae, and E. Weig, Constancy of the undiluted inverse Q from the stress-diluted dissipation of crystalline nanomechanical resonators (to appear).
  35. J. Chen, A. Fahim, J. C. Suhling, and R. C. Jaeger, in 2019 18th IEEE Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (ITherm) (IEEE, Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2019), p. 835.
  36. S. Schmid, L. G. Villanueva, and M. L. Roukes, Fundamentals of Nanomechanical Resonators (Springer Cham, 2016), Vol. 49.
  37. J. Ben Messaoud, J.-F. Michaud, D. Certon, M. Camarda, N. Piluso, L. Colin, F. Barcella, and D. Alquier, Investigation of the Young’s modulus and the residual stress of 4H-SiC circular membranes on 4H-SiC substrates, Micromachines 10, 801 (2019).
  38. W.-W. Xu, F. Xia, L. Chen, M. Wu, T. Gang, and Y. Huang, High-temperature mechanical and thermodynamic properties of silicon carbide polytypes, J. Alloys Compd. 768, 722 (2018).
  39. M. M. Islam, C. F. Huang, and F. Zhao, in Silicon Carbide and Related Materials 2011, Materials Science Forum (Trans Tech Publications Ltd, Switzerland, 2012), Vol. 717, p. 529.
  40. S. Karmann, R. Helbig, and R. A. Stein, Piezoelectric properties and elastic constants of 4H and 6H SiC at temperatures 4–320 K, J. Appl. Phys. 66, 3922 (1989).
  41. L. Pizzagalli, Stability and mobility of screw dislocations in 4H, 2H and 3C silicon carbide, Acta Mater. 78, 236 (2014).
  42. T. Yahagi, T. Ohji, H. Yamaguchi, T. Takahashi, H. Nakano, M. Iijima, and J. Tatami, Deformation behavior and fracture strength of single-crystal 4H-SiC determined by microcantilever bending tests, Adv. Eng. Mater. 26, 2400095 (2024).
  43. M. Nuruzzaman, M. A. Islam, M. A. Alam, M. H. Shah, and A. Karim, Structural, elastic and electronic properties of 2h-and 4H-SiC, Int. J. Eng. Res. Appl. 5, 48 (2015).
  44. J. Yang, B. Hamelin, and F. Ayazi, Investigating elastic anisotropy of 4H-SiC using ultra-high q bulk acoustic wave resonators, J. Microelectromech. Syst. 29, 1473 (2020).
  45. H. Sakakima, S. Takamoto, Y. Murakami, A. Hatano, A. Goryu, K. Hirohata, and S. Izumi, Development of a method to evaluate the stress distribution in 4H-SiC power devices, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 57, 106602 (2018).
  46. K. Kamitani, M. Grimsditch, J. C. Nipko, C.-K. Loong, M. Okada, and I. Kimura, The elastic constants of silicon carbide: A Brillouin-scattering study of 4H and 6H SiC single crystals, J. Appl. Phys. 82, 3152 (1997).
  47. M. Iuga, G. Steinle-Neumann, and J. Meinhardt, Ab-initio simulation of elastic constants for some ceramic materials, Eur. Phys. J. B 58, 127 (2007).
  48. F. Khan, L. Zhou, V. Kumar, and I. Adesida, Low-damage etching of silicon carbide in CL2-based plasmas, J. Electrochem. Soc. 149, G420 (2002).
  49. J. Michaels, N. Delegan, Y. Tsaturyan, J. Renzas, D. Awschalom, J. Eden, and F. Heremans, Bias-pulsed atomic layer etching of 4H-silicon carbide producing subangstrom surface roughness, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. 41, 032607 (2023).
  50. A. Hochreiter, P. Bredol, B. Demiralp, F. David, H. B. Weber, and E. M. Weig, Data for publication: Monolithic 4H-SiC nanomechanical resonators with high intrinsic quality factors, 2025, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14765535.
  51. D. M. Photiadis and J. A. Judge, Attachment losses of high Q oscillators, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 482 (2004).
  52. I. Wilson-Rae, Intrinsic dissipation in nanomechanical resonators due to phonon tunneling, Phys. Rev. B 77, 245418 (2008).
  53. C. Zener, Internal friction in solids. I. Theory of internal friction in reeds, Phys. Rev. 52, 230 (1937).
  54. R. Lifshitz and M. L. Roukes, Thermoelastic damping in micro- and nanomechanical systems, Phys. Rev. B 61, 5600 (2000).
  55. A. H. Gomes de Mesquita, Refinement of the crystal structure of SiC type 6H, Acta Crystallogr. 23, 610 (1967).
  56. M. E. Levinshtein, S. L. Rumyantsev, and M. S. Shur, Properties of Advanced Semiconductor Materials: GaN, AIN, InN, BN, SiC, SiGe (John Wiley & Sons, 2001).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Applied 24, 034005– Published 3 September, 2025
  • Received 5 February 2025
  • Revised 24 June 2025
  • Accepted 22 July 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation