Electroplated Ni-CNT Nanocomposite for Micromechanical Resonator Applications

In this letter, electroplated Ni-CNT nanocomposite is synthesized and utilized as a structural material for micromechanical resonator fabrication. Pretreated by sulfate sodium dodecyl, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) disperse well in electrolyte and can be incorporated in an electroplated Ni film. Clamped-clamped beam resonators fabricated using the nanocomposite show 27% resonant frequency enhancement (from 498.75 to 634.72 kHz). Meanwhile, the Q factors of 781 and 760 for Ni and Ni-CNT nanocomposite resonators, which are comparable with the prior art, indicate that the anchor loss could dominate the Q performance of the beam resonators.