Mechanical and optical nanodevices in single-crystal quartz

Abstract

Single-crystal alpha-quartz, one of the most widely used piezoelectric materials, has enabled a wide range of timing applications. Owing to the fact that an integrated thin-film based quartz platform is not available, most of these applications rely on macroscopic, bulk crystal-based devices. Here, we show that the Faraday cage angled-etching technique can be used to realize nanoscale electromechanical and photonic devices in quartz. Using this approach, we demonstrate quartz nanomechanical cantilevers and ring resonators featuring Qs of 4900 and 8900, respectively.