Acoustic Analysis of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube-based Vacuum Sensor

Abstract

In this paper, the acoustic wave propagation of single walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) is investigated with a look into their applications in vacuum sensors at the microscale. First, the carbon nanotube in fixed-free is simulated by a continuum elastic shell modeling to analyze to the wave propagation of single walled carbon nanotubes. The sensing principle of the single-walled carbon nanotube-based vacuum sensor is based on the resonant frequency shift of a carbon nanotube acoustic bridge driven by resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) when it is subjected to sub-atmosphere force or gas pressure. The results indicate that the quality factor of the SWCNT bridge can be very high. The simulation analysis results show that the modeling approach is appropriated to describe the acoustic wave propagation of SWNT, which may be adopted as a theoretical reference for vacuum sensor design.