Submicrosecond-timescale readout of carbon nanotube mechanical motion

We report fast readout of the motion of a carbon nanotube mechanical resonator. A close-proximity high electron mobility transistor amplifier is used to increase the bandwidth of the measurement of nanotube displacements from the kHz to the MHz regime. Using an electrical detection scheme with the nanotube acting as a mixer, we detect the...

Carbon nanotubes as electromechanical resonators: Single-electron tunneling, nonlinearity, and high-bandwidth readout

A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a remarkable material and can be thought of as a single-atom thick cylinder of carbon atoms capped of with a semisphere. This is called a single-walled CNT and, depending on how the cylinder is rolled up, CNTs are either semiconducting or metallic. A CNT is made into a mechanical resonator by suspending it between two...