Suspended graphene variable capacitor

Electromechanical variable capacitors, or varactors, find a wide range of applications including sensing applications and the tuning of electrical circuit resonance. We demonstrate a nano-electromechanical graphene varactor, a variable capacitor wherein the capacitance is tuned by voltage controlled deflection of a dense array of suspended graphene membranes. The low flexural rigidity of graphene monolayers is exploited to achieve low actuation voltage and high tunable capacitance density in an ultra-thin structure. Large arrays comprising thousands of suspensions were fabricated to give a tunable capacitance of over 10 pF mm⁻². This capacitance density suggests that graphene offers a potential solution to the challenge of reducing the size of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). A capacitance tuning of 55% was achieved with a 10 V actuating voltage, exceeding the 50% tuning limit of Hookean parallel plate pull-in without the use of complex mechanical schemes that occupy substrate area. Capacitor behavior was investigated experimentally, and described by a simple theoretical model. Mechanical properties of the graphene membranes were measured independently using atomic force microscopy. We present a comparison of state-of-the-art MEMS and graphene varactors. The quality factor of graphene varactors is limited by graphene sheet resistance, pull-in voltage can be improved with more aggressive scaling, while the power handling and cycling stability of graphene varactors remains unknown. (letter)