Giant resonance tuning of micro and nanomechanical oscillators

We present a method to tune the resonance frequency and the Q-factor of micro and nano-metric mechanical oscillators. A counteracting loop drives a capacitive force applied to the oscillator. The proportional and differential gains are used to shift the resonance frequency up to 75% and to tune the Q-factor of the oscillator, by changing its effective stiffness and damping ratio. The oscillator position is monitored in a large bandwidth with a fiber-optic based interferometer. We applied this simple operational scheme with different oscillators for modifying easily their dynamical properties. Compared to alternative methods requiring external fields, our method can either increase or decrease the resonance frequency in a frequency range much more extended. This opens up a wide range of applications, from force sensors with extremely low elastic constants but high quality factor to tunable energy harvesters or to high-frequency tuning of radio frequency filters. The control scheme can work in different media, and is then suitable to be applied to biological sensors and actuators.