Self-Assembled Nano-Drums

Using the expertise in nanoparticle synthesis and assembly built up in IRG 3, a University of Chicago MRSEC team comprised of members of the Jaeger and Talapin groups collaborated with Xiao-Min Lin and Jeffrey Guest at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials and John Sader from the University of Melbourne to develop the first completely self-assembled nano-mechanical resonator.

It forms when a nanoparticle monolayer drapes itself over a hole several microns in diameter to produce a 10nm thin, freestanding membrane that vibrates in the MHz range (transmission electron microscope images shown in left inset). Vibration spectra (left) and images of the vibration patterns (right) are obtained with an interferometric laser microscope that scans across the membrane and can detect vibration amplitudes as small as a few pico-meters.