Hierarchical tensile structures with ultralow mechanical dissipation

Structural hierarchy is found in myriad biological systems and has improved man-made structures ranging from the Eiffel tower to optical cavities. In mechanical resonators whose rigidity is provided by static tension, structural hierarchy can reduce the dissipation of the fundamental mode to ultralow levels due to an unconventional form of soft clamping. Here, we apply hierarchical design to silicon nitride nanomechanical resonators and realize binary tree-shaped resonators with room temperature quality factors as high as 7.8 × 10 8 at 107 kHz frequency (1.1 × 10 9 at T = 6 K). The resonators’ thermal-noise-limited force sensitivities reach 740 zN/Hz 1/2 at room temperature and 90 zN/Hz 1/2 at 6 K, surpassing state-of-the-art cantilevers currently used for force microscopy. Moreover, we demonstrate hierarchically structured, ultralow dissipation membranes suitable for interferometric position measurements in Fabry-Pérot cavities. Hierarchical nanomechanical resonators open new avenues in force sensing, signal transduction and quantum optomechanics, where low dissipation is paramount and operation with the fundamental mode is often advantageous.