Bridging the mass gap: Viruses and many large biomolecule complexes are in a mass range that is challenging to measure with conventional mass spectrometry methods. Nanomechanical resonators can determine masses of impacting molecules, but separation methods often lose too much of the sample to be efficient. Dominguez-Medina et al. used an aerodynamic lens that improved separation and focusing of nebulized molecules with increasing mass. The mass of both filled and empty viral capsids was determined with an array of 20 nanoresonators. Science , this issue p. 918

Nanomechanical mass spectrometry has proven to be well suited for the analysis of high mass species such as viruses. Still, the use of one-dimensional devices such as vibrating beams forces a trade-off between analysis time and mass resolution. Complex readout schemes are also required to simultaneously monitor multiple resonance modes, which degrades resolution. These issues restrict nanomechanical MS to specific species. We demonstrate here single-particle mass spectrometry with nano-optomechanical resonators fabricated with a Very Large Scale Integration process. The unique motion sensitivity of optomechanics allows designs that are impervious to particle position, stiffness or shape, opening the way to the analysis of large aspect ratio biological objects of great significance such as viruses with a tail or fibrils. Compared to top-down beam resonators with electrical read-out and state-of-the-art mass resolution, we show a three-fold improvement in capture area with no resolution degradation, despite the use of a single resonance mode.

Chaotic systems, presenting complex and nonreproducible dynamics, may be found in nature, from the interaction between planets to the evolution of weather, but can also be tailored using current technologies for advanced signal processing. However, the realization of chaotic signal generators remains challenging due to the involved dynamics of the underlying physics. In this paper, we experimentally and numerically present a disruptive approach to generate a chaotic signal from a micromechanical resonator. This technique overcomes the long-established complexity of controlling the buckling in micro/nanomechanical structures by modulating either the amplitude or the frequency of the driving force applied to the resonator in the nonlinear regime. The experimental characteristic parameters of the chaotic regime, namely, the Poincaré sections and Lyapunov exponents, are directly comparable to simulations for different configurations. These results confirm that this dynamical approach is transposable to any kind of micro/nanomechanical resonator, from accelerometers to microphones. We demonstrate a direct application exploiting the mixing properties of the chaotic regime by transforming an off-the-shelf microdiaphragm into a true random number generator conforming to the National Institute of Standards and Technology specifications. The versatility of this original method opens new paths to combine the unique properties of chaos with the exceptional sensitivity of microstructures, leading to emergent microsystems.

Resonators used in frequency-reference oscillators must maintain a stable frequency output even when subjected to temperature variations. The traditional solution is to construct the resonator from a material with a low temperature coefficient, such as AT-cut quartz, which can achieve absolute frequency stability on the order of ±25 ppm over commercial temperature ranges. In comparison, Si microresonators suffer from the disadvantage that silicon's temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) is approximately two orders of magnitude greater than that of AT-cut quartz. In this paper, we present an in situ passive temperature compensation scheme for Si microresonators based on nonlinear amplitude-frequency coupling which reduces the TCF to a level comparable with that of an AT-quartz resonator. The implementation of this passive technique is generic to a variety of Si microresonators and can be applied to a number of frequency control and timing applications.

We demonstrate synchronization between two intrinsically coupled oscillators that are created from two distinct vibration modes of a single micromachined disk resonator. The modes have a 3:1 subharmonic frequency relationship and cubic, non-dissipative electromechanical coupling between the modes enables their two frequencies to synchronize. Our experimental implementation allows the frequency of the lower frequency oscillator to be independently controlled from that of the higher frequency oscillator, enabling study of the synchronization dynamics. We find close quantitative agreement between the experimental behavior and an analytical coupled-oscillator model as a function of the energy in the two oscillators. We demonstrate that the synchronization range increases when the lower frequency oscillator is strongly driven and when the higher frequency oscillator is weakly driven. This result suggests that synchronization can be applied to the frequency-selective detection of weak signals and other mechanical signal processing functions.

In contrast to the well-known phenomenon of frequency stabilization in a synchronized noisy nonlinear oscillator, little is known about its amplitude stability. In this paper, we investigate experimentally and theoretically the amplitude evolution and stability of a nonlinear nanomechanical self-sustained oscillator that is synchronized with an external harmonic drive. We show that the phase difference between the tones plays a critical role on the amplitude level, and we demonstrate that in the strongly nonlinear regime, its amplitude fluctuations are reduced considerably. These findings bring to light a new facet of the synchronization phenomenon, extending its range of applications beyond the field of clock-references and suggesting a new means to enhance oscillator amplitude stability.