Damping of 3D-printed polymer microbeam resonators

Abstract

The emerging high-resolution 3D printing technique called two-photon polymerization (2PP) enables to print devices bottom-up rapidly, contrary to the top-down lithography-based fabrication methods. In this work, various polymer microbeams are 3D printed and their resonant characteristics are analyzed to understand the origin of damping. The 2PP printed polymer resonators have shown less damping than other polymer devices reported earlier, with tensile-stressed clamped-clamped beams reaching a record quality factor of 1819. The resonant energy loss was dominant by bulk friction damping. These results pave the path towards using 3D printed microresonators as mass sensors with improved design and fabrication flexibility.